


arise, my darling, and go forth

by NaroMoreau



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Priests, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Needs a Hug (Good Omens), Barebacking, Biblical Allusions (Abrahamic Religions), Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), Biblical quotes galore, Blasphemy, Catholic Guilt, Catholic Imagery, Coming In Pants, Coming Out, Creampie, Domestic Fluff, Drinking, Frottage, Happy Ending, Heresy, Hugs, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Intercrural Sex, Intimacy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Omg there was only one bed, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Priests, Religion, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Roman Catholicism, Sharing a Bed, Shower Sex, Significant Hand Holding, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, The inherent emotional significance of praying the rosary together, Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Aziraphale (Good Omens), Using catholic paraphernalia in an unholy way, but nothing too terrible, here there will be priests fucking in churches, it applies to both of them tbh, of sorts, omg there was only one rosary, pure of heart dumb of ass, sex between priests, some blasphemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:49:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26948512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaroMoreau/pseuds/NaroMoreau
Summary: Father Aziraphale Fell lives a quiet life as a priest in Tadfield. When Father Anthony Crowley arrives, appointed there by the diocese, a lot of things he thought forgotten will re appear to face him with the deepest and most hidden parts of himself.A Priests AU✝️Cover Art by the ridiculously talentedNuriaMurogio💕✨Illustration in chapter 3 by the amazingLei-Sam💕Illustration in chapter 6 by the wonderfulGingerlizzard💕
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1231
Kudos: 1189
Collections: Best Aziraphale and Crowley, Clerical Omens, Good Omens Human AUs, Ineffable Humans AU, Ixnael’s Recommendations, Top Aziraphale Recs





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hanap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanap/gifts), [quiltedspacemittens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiltedspacemittens/gifts), [saretton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saretton/gifts).



> So, this was *definitely* born out of [gayforgoodmen's](https://gayforgoodomens.tumblr.com/search/priests%20au) Priest AU on Tumblr, and I just hope to manage to catch a sliver of that same atmosphere. 
> 
> I have a lot of people to thanks to, starting by the ever so wonderful [caedmon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caedmon/pseuds/Caedmon) who keeps being an amazing friend and writer buddy ever. Thank you for all your words and your encouragement and your time!! 
> 
> To my forever and ever favourite partner in religious crime [hanap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanap/pseuds/hanap) . seriously. what would've done without you??? without your words and your encouragement and your whole existence i'm just-- thank you! 
> 
> As always to my sister from another mother [afhyer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afhyer/pseuds/afhyer) for just being overall amazing and just I love you, okay? thank you for everything. 
> 
> And to my excellent beta [Hatknitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HatKnitter) who keeps graciously granting me her time and effort. Thank you so much!!!
> 
> Beautiful cover art by the ridiculously talented  
> [NuriaMurogio](https://mobile.twitter.com/nuriamurogio) 💕✨
> 
> Title taken of the Song of Songs

_I feel like a part of my soul has loved you since the beginning of everything._   
_Maybe we’re from the same star._

(Emery Allen)

* * *

In the reality-blurring, bright warmth of the morning, Father Aziraphale Fell winces at his predicament. Outside, the summer has brought a burst of colors, glimmering against the ever-present green, clouds in the sky like spools of thread. A pity, a day so beautiful to get brushed lackluster by the news.

Not much he can do now. 

He glances through the stained-glass window at the car parked outside, all sleek and black-lacquered angles catching the light of the just-risen sun, and wonders what kind of priest can afford such a vehicle. A transgression, he thinks. Clearly a slice of the sin of pride, exposed for the world to see. 

He knows he's judging – add that to his stack of venial sins to discharge at the confessionary soon – but right now it’s more a coping mechanism of some sort. 

He blows out a long drawn-out breath. Aziraphale seems to have made an art of fidgeting. He’s currently intertwining his fingers and fussing with a button of his cassock in such a way that it’s a miracle the thing hasn't popped out of place. Now he pulls at his collar – stretch, _stretch_ – and back to the buttons. A vicious cycle of frazzled nerves.

The clock of his office chimes nine. For a moment, a fleeting one, he regrets the growth of his congregation, wishes Tadfield hadn't become the residence of Mr. Dowling, the American Ambassador, and the entourage that followed him.

When Gabriel - _the Archbishop Fell_ \- had announced to him that soon there would be another priest joining him at the parish to avoid bination, Aziraphale had fretted. A stranger coming to disturb his peace, meddling in the haven that walled him from the world, breaking into the place where he had willingly penned himself in. Coming to show him clearly how out of tune he was, to extrapolate the sins of his too-lush meals, his too-soft body, his too-many books. 

Gluttonous, lazy, greedy creature that he was.

Aziraphale knows. For all the many flaws he can harbor within, lying to himself isn't one of the pits he purposely steps his foot in. His call to the ministry had always been a matter of convenience at best, of self-preservation at its core. He’s well aware of that. There are times when he still gets blindsided by the cloying sensation that smothers him, remembering when he’d had to decide. Following the clerical path was the only way he could see out of a family goading him to settle with a “ _nice girl_.” The irony doesn't escape Aziraphale, that the clergy became a refuge against the rampant homophobia of his own family. If only for that, he's grateful. That doesn’t mean he’s displeased with the life he's scrambled to haphazardly assemble in the last twenty years. It doesn’t mean that his devotion is any less. 

He _is_ content. He has his faith. He has his books, the stories he dreams over, running longing fingers across the pages, grieving for what he wasn't allowed to have. He's made his peace with it. 

He has the Lord, and a string of self-indulgences he doesn’t want to renounce.

He casts about the room, taking in the sight of the rumpled corner of the rug, the pile of books left on the table next to his reading chair – in quite a precarious balance, if he's honest – and the general clutter of knick-knacks crowding the shelves all around. Perhaps he should've tidied up a bit. 

Oh, well. It's too late now. 

A soft knock on the mahogany door startles him out of his musings. 

"Father Fell?" Tracy, his secretary, calls.

He adjusts his collar, runs plump fingers through his curls hoping a last-minute taming will suffice, and sits behind his desk. "Come in."

Tracy trudges in with a sympathetic smile on her face, carries in the day’s correspondence and sets it on the desk. "Father Crowley arrived a few minutes ago, and he's asking if he could see you."

"Of course, my dear," Aziraphale says, clenching his jaw, a tug of nervousness rolling in his stomach. "Send him in. And perhaps you could arrange the table so we can share breakfast afterwards?" He mentally winces at the idea of having to cut back on his consumption of scones and cocoa, to try to maintain a _facade_ of moderation. 

"I can do that."

"Marvellous." Aziraphale straightens his back, and tries to adopt a pious stance, "Now wish me luck, dear." 

"Oh, none of that," she scoffs. "I'm sure you two will get along just fine."

Aziraphale grunts something that can neither be interpreted as agreement or as disagreement. It’s impossible to answer, so Tracy shakes her head and strolls out, shutting the door behind her.

He throws a last, long-suffering glance at Saint Sebastian, up there on his wall, to gather his courage, then shakes his own head. Ridiculous. 

A minute later, a knock, harder than before.

A resigned sag of his shoulders, "Come in, please."

The door swings open, and Father Crowley strolls in. Something inside Aziraphale shifts, in that traitorous place that always lurks behind his chest. A small, imperceptible sigh leaves his lips, barely a tremor under the dark cloth of his vestment. 

"Uh, hello?" Father Crowley says, after some dithering at the threshold. A shock of red hair catches every speck of attention. Long, slender fingers adjust a pair of sunglasses. "I'm Father Anthony Crowley."

Aziraphale blinks, a nervous fluttering of pale lashes. "Y-yes, I'm very glad to see you made it here." He signals to the chair in front of him, "Please."

"Thanks."

Father Crowley slinks – no, no, _sashays_ – towards the chair, and Aziraphale clamps his teeth together watching the sinuous line of long, _long_ , legs bending, the narrow width of his hips swaying, as he sprawls into the chair. 

A pulse arrows through Aziraphale, heat rising across the back of his neck, heart pounding. His fingers wind around the beads of the rosary ensconced in his pocket, all of their own accord.

"I hope you had an uneventful journey?" He finally asks, herding his thoughts over to a safer path, his eyes back up to the handsome face, breaking the pause before it balloons into something awkward. 

"Can't complain, really," Father Crowley says. His shades stay safely perched on the sharp line of his nose, and Aziraphale finds himself wondering about the colour of his eyes. "'Twas alright."

"Clear roads?"

"Yep. Lots of sheep, though," Father Crowley says. "Truly an English countryside experience."

Aziraphale chuckles at that, "Oh yes, and wait until you get acquainted with the town fair and the scone-baking contests."

There’s a peal of clear laughter and the long slope of a throat thrown back. The flush Aziraphale feels mottling from his cheeks down his neck is certainly inappropriate, and he thanks the Lord the high collar swallows it under the holiness of the cassock. 

He rolls a silent prayer on his tongue, his stomach flipping uncomfortably. 

"I've been told by the Bishop that you requested this position," he says, trying to regain his footing. "May I ask why?"

"'Course," Father Crowley says. Aziraphale can’t help noticing a bit of pink stealing under the pale skin of his cheeks, a tight clench in the line of his shoulders. "I really like the, uh, the greenery. Bit of a horticulturist, me. And London can be hard for that, you know? It's more treacly smog than air." Aziraphale doesn’t know how, but Father Crowley angles his body into something truly absurd, still managing to remain seated. “When the opportunity popped up to come out to the country, I just seized it.”.

“Oh, that’s nice," Aziraphale says, considering, realizing things are probably veering in a hopeful direction. At least Father Crowley doesn’t seem religiously belligerent, isn’t trying to gain a moral upper hand.

Father Crowley’s shoulders slither into a dismissive shrug, some kind of noise falling from his mouth. “ _Ngk. Mphf_.”

"We have a small vivarium at the back of the presbytery you might find interesting."

"Ah, that's- that’s good to know." 

Aziraphale allows himself a smile, taking in Father Crowley's honest grin. "And what about the masses?"

"What about them?"

"Do you have any preferences? Morning or evening?"

"Whatever accommodates you better," he shrugs. 

"Would it be alright if perhaps, for today, I could celebrate the evening mass to inform our parishioners of your arrival? And then, perhaps, we could switch at leisure?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Jolly good, then," Aziraphale says, relaxing a bit. This is proving to be a far better scenario than the dreadful ideas he’d envisioned earlier. It bears a promise of smooth sailing, if he can quench this thing inside him, file off the sharp point that’s skewering him. "May I ask another question?"

Father Crowley nods, "Sure. Ask away."

"Are those sunglasses… "

"Medically prescribed. Yep. Have a bit of an aversion to light."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

"Nah. 'S good. It isn't as big a deal as it seems,” Father Crowley says, with a smile that might be crinkling the corners of his eyes, perhaps drawing out a sharp depth in them. 

Aziraphale stomps down the desperate desire to peel those sunglasses off. He fiddles, rearranging his notes to distract from what is clearly the impulse of a madman and an invasion of personal space. Scribbled papers with bits and pieces of yesterday’s sermon, sacred words that probably should be burning his fingers in a moment like this. 

“You must be starving,” he finally says. “Would you like to have breakfast with me? We could discuss parish work and the diocese's dealings over coffee, perhaps?”

“Of course.” Father Crowley’s smile widens, a sharp set of canines peeking over lips that shouldn’t look so soft. “Lead the way.” 

Aziraphale swallows. 

* * *

That evening, when the mass is truly and finally over, Aziraphale steps outside the silent church with the burn of incense stinging his nose – a blessing of a sort. 

He gazes at the sky as purples begins to fork out across the bleeding dusk like a slick of oil, stars glittering, winking at him in the growing darkness, while he ponders whether he could, perhaps, arrange half an excuse to avoid the invitation for dinner in two weeks that Harriet Dowling has _graciously_ extended.

Aziraphale walks towards the presbytery, cassock billowing behind him and brushing his tired ankles. He hasn’t seen Father Crowley since noon, when they’d shared Aziraphale’s standard lunch, discussing tasks and ideas regarding the diocese. 

Unlike other times, Aziraphale had promptly realized he didn’t mind at all going over the taxes, expenses, and accounting books, while very much _not_ watching the arresting figure of Father Crowley peering at him from across the insufficient expanse of the table. Aziraphale is very well aware where this is heading. He’s absolutely well aware of the thing blooming inside him.

It’s something he's dealt with before. 

Perhaps not in quite some decades – it's been long years since he has allowed himself to let his eyes drift. Take in. _Revel_. But things like this tend to flow along, following the same direction inside oneself, as would a river that has repeatedly licked the same shores, carving a path that has eventually become predictable. And thus, it will be preventable. 

It troubles him, but alarmingly less than he’s sure ought to, and he isn’t going to ponder the reasons why. And besides, he's probably tying himself in knots for nothing. He has eyes. Appreciates beauty. That is all.

It’s just admiration. 

He can admire from afar, and there's nothing wrong with that; like a fine meal, like a rare book bound in worn-out leather, like a gorgeous painting dominating a wall where the wallpaper has become yellow and tattered by use and age.

Stark colors over a washed-out backdrop. A welcome change. A bit of variety. 

The dark wind whistles about as Aziraphale makes his way along the road, gravel crunching beneath his loafers.

There's a sizzle coming from the kitchen when he steps into the small foyer, a rattle of metal and clinking of glass.

Aziraphale steps further inside, unsure. Today is Tracy's night off, and he has been considering preparing himself a small meal, if he didn't happen to find Father Crowley, and go to bed to catch up on his current book. 

When he steps across the kitchen’s threshold, he's surprised by the sight of Father Crowley, apron over his clerical shirt and trousers, serving plates of what smells like an exquisite _tagliatelle_ Alfredo, a bottle of wine already open on the table.

"Uh, hello?"

"Oh, hey there." Father Crowley twirls toward him, rubbing his hands on the apron, a garish thing in orange and green that must belong to Tracy. "Tracy told me today was her day off, so I figured… well, I mean, given you were all so busy, I figured I could make us something to eat?"

An odd warmth squirms in Aziraphale's middle. "Oh!"

"Yeah. I mean," Father Crowley clears his throat and Aziraphale watches the tips of his ears go pink, "unless you were doing some sort of fasting thing I know nothing about?"

"Oh, good heavens, no!" Aziraphale blurts out. Which perhaps isn't the most appropriate answer, given his line of work. "I just… wasn't expecting it."

"Nnngh. Yeah," Father Crowley says. "Hope you don't mind. I asked Tracy which was your favourite, because…," he clears his throat again. 

_The poor dear_ , Aziraphale thinks, _he must have spent a good deal of time breathing the smoke of the kitchen. It has him all discombobulated._

"Because," Father Crowley follows, "well. Some kind of ‘hey, sorry for intruding’ thing."

Aziraphale feels his face melting into a smile so bright and heartfelt that it instantly makes him realize he hasn't smiled like that in decades. When had been the last, pitiful time he'd been anything other than a problem-solver, a peace-giver, without any kind of personal depth for someone else? 

Oh, Aziraphale loves his flock. He positively adores their enthusiasm and their faith and their generosity, and the myriad cakes and biscuits left in tins at his front door. He knows their lives and he worries about them. But he's still The Father, removed from them out of necessity, separate.

Right here, right now, he's just a human being accepting a gift of consideration. And when his eyes settle on the angular lines of Father Crowley's handsome face, there's a beat of something stark against his ribs, a butterfly flying blindly, over and over, into a windowpane. _Breathe._

"You're not intruding," he says wholeheartedly. "You were appointed here."

"Tomayto, tomahto." 

"Well, in any case, thank you, _my dear_ ," he says around the knot in his throat. 

Father Crowley takes the apron off, a delightful blush spreading over his cheeks. "'S alright."

They sit at the table and, for a moment, Aziraphale's thoughts flounder. Then Father Crowley spreads his fingers, palm up, next to Aziraphale's. An offering. 

"Say Grace?" Father Crowley asks, softly, and perhaps the light of the kitchen is too bright, or playing tricks on Aziraphale's eyes, because against it, he swears he can almost see golden eyes behind those shades. Golden eyes tracking his face, earnestly. 

Aziraphale laces their fingers together and dips his head. The hand in his is warm and slightly rough, a gentle dusting of red hair over the forearm where the sleeve of the shirt has pulled a bit up. Aziraphale's throat feels like it's clicking, his heart skittering.

"Of course," Aziraphale says finally, closing his own treacherous eyes. "Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen."

A shuddering sigh, so soft Aziraphale isn't sure it’s truly there. "Amen."

* * *

Crowley is definitely feeling out of sorts. 

_This_ is not what he had in mind when he accepted this position. _This_ had already taken a 180-degree turn from what he was expecting, coming here.

For starters, he hadn't expected Father Fell to be so _nice_. Granted, he's a priest, like Crowley. But he has met quite a good number of clergymen, and knows the two aren’t always mutually inclusive. There are tossers aplenty dressed in cassocks and albs. In fact, it’s positively rampant in the church. From what he had gathered before coming here, Crowley had already decided Father Fell was going to be one of those fussy dinosaurs, clinging to the old ways. He had been thrilled, excitedly plotting the many ways he might make his life miserable. Yes, yes. It was petty, leaning toward truly sinful, but he has never really believed the Lord would write red marks in one's heavenly ledger for just larking about. 

But that's all out of the question, now.

And he had certainly not, absolutely _not_ been expecting Father Fell to look like a bloody Angel of the Lord. To be so inconveniently breathtaking. Yeah. It was unreal. No human could have eyes so blue, hair so bright, a face so fair. 

It’s totally, absolutely unfair. Talking about forfeiting the upper hand! Still… he's still a priest. _Christ_ . Crowley's still a priest, and he certainly shouldn't be entertaining these thoughts; _pluck out your eyes_ and all that gory bit.

"Has London been the only place you have exercised your ministry?" Father Fell asks, derailing Crowley’s train of thought. 

"Ah, nope. Spent a good chunk of time in Suffolk," he answers smoothly, like a normal person might. A person not distracted by watching as Father Fell rolls his wrist in a complicated figure, tangling the tagliatelle in his fork. It's almost hypnotizing. "Um. Lots of folks there needing someone to lean on."

"I believe there's not a single place on Earth where you can't find people in dire need of that kind of help."

"Yeah, that's true. And hope, as well," Crowley says, taking a sip of the wine he's already poured… and almost choking on it the moment a lewd, unimaginably obscene moan emerges from Father Fell's lips.

_God Almighty. A little bit of Mercy? Please?_

This was definitely going to be a briarpatch. 

"Oh, this is positively scrumptious!" Father Fell says, wiggling an honest-to-God _wiggle_ in his chair. Crowley's stomach twists, tight, _tight._

He wrenches his eyes from the sight in front of him and pulls his gaze back to the safety of his plate, where his tagliatelle look back at him accusingly. "Ngh. Yeah. 'M a bit of a cook, me." He stuffs his mouth with pasta, just to have something to ground himself into, and chews as slowly as he can, wrestling his wayward thoughts into some sort of submission.

"Where did you learn, if I may ask?" 

Crowley swallows a gulp of wine. "Had to fend for myself when I was younger. My first life choices weren't what you might call stellar. More like a bit of a hot mess, if I'm honest."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that," Father Fell says. And, by the Grace of God, he looks as if he actually means it.

"Nah, it's fine now. Learning to cook helped me climb out of that. Water under the bridge, now, and all that." 

"Is that why you joined the clergy?"

"Could say so." Crowley takes another bite before following, "Just wanted to, you know, to give something back. Try to level the playing field a bit for the people who need it, like I did once."

Father Fell’s face softens, the lines easing into a smile. "It does feel rather nice to know you can have the power to help, and to exert it, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it sure does." 

"And, pardon my curiosity but, well, was it in Suffolk or London that you got that car? The one at the entrance? I don't know much about cars, but yours does seem rather nice."

"Thanks," Crowley says with a grin. "It's a Bentley. And yeah, believe it or not, I got it as scraps years ago in London. Restored it myself, bit by bit. As a project. To take my mind off things."

"Oh, that sounds positively delightful."

For a moment, Crowley expects to hear the same tirade he has already listened to hundreds of times. He waits, but it doesn’t appear. "So," he finally asks, "aren't you going to tell me I shouldn't get attached to earthly things? Too much greed and what have you?"

"Oh, no, my dear," Aziraphale says, and Crowley's gut turns that little sumersault again. "It would be a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, I think. Not given how far I’ve gone out of my way, sometimes, to acquire some of my books."

Crowley's brows quirk, "Really?"

"Oh, yes, rather," Aziraphale says with a smile that looks sweetly self-indulgent, and perhaps more honest because of it. "I certainly don't see anything wrong with appreciating what life has to offer in a measured sort of way. What good does it do to pretend we aren't humans, as well as clergy? If anything, I believe it helps us understand our flock better, don't you think?" 

Crowley swallows, his innards doing something he can't quite understand. "Yeah. That's right," he says, finally. There's some clattering of forks before Crowley speaks again. "And what about you? What's the story behind Father Aziraphale Fell? Quite a mouthful that is," he says.

" _Oh_ . Oh, please. I see no reason you can't just call me Aziraphale," Father- _Aziraphale_ says. "If I'm quite honest, every time I hear ‘Father Fell,’ I instantly think of my brother."

"Your brother?"

"The Archbishop of York. Father Gabriel Fell."

Crowley's eyes widen behind his sunglasses. "Oh! I mean- I knew the name was familiar, but I didn't realize he was your brother. He looks…" 

"Yes, we look nothing alike," Aziraphale says, delicately preparing another bite. "Gabriel takes after our father, and I took after our mother. Polar opposites, one could say."

"Right," Crowley dabs his mouth with a napkin. "So the call just runs in your family, then?"

At this, Aziraphale's face pinches, his hand clenches a bit around the handle of the fork. Crowley knows enough of human nature to see that this is a sore subject. 

"Something like that," Aziraphale says, with just a thread of a voice, his mouth curling in a stilted smile, something sharp in his eyes. 

Crowley knows, right then and there, there's little he wouldn't do to not see that expression ever again. It's more a feeling, a thrumming in his veins, than an actual coherent thought.

Which is ridiculous. 

"Oh, goodness," Aziraphale says, suddenly. "It's rather late. You must be exhausted." He stands and takes his empty plate to the sink. "Why don't you go to bed? I'll tidy everything up here."

"Ah… yeah. Sure." Crowley follows with his plate, blinking. "And er, just so you know, you can call me Crowley."

Aziraphale's eyes sparkle _– blue, blue, so blue,_ candy floss hair glowing like a halo. "Then good night, Crowley. Thank you for the lovely meal."

"Good night, Aziraphale."

Crowley edges around him on his way out, glances back from the blessed cover of the dark hallway.

_Good night, angel._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmu on [Tumblr](https://naromoreau.tumblr.com/) <3  
> Or if you want, come and let's yell into the void on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xenoscientist/), as I'm just starting to dive into it. <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, my love to HatKnitter for the beta 💕

There’s a silent sort of calm in this dimly lit room, in the soft creaking of the parquet, and the hardwood walls that surround them. Even in the old, tattered wallpaper slowly peeling from the surfaces. A small kernel of bliss, a space offset, just to the side of constricting collars and dogmas. It’s… peaceful, comforting like crackling embers in a fireplace warming cold skin, like Crowley’s calling had felt so many years ago. 

But he shouldn’t be thinking like this. He clenches his jaw to blot these foolhardy, dangerous thoughts out. 

It’s been two weeks, and each day passed has served to show Crowley the true meaning of temperance. Past the exegesis and the fancy words behind it, it’s actually quite simple. _Keep your hand away_ , he thinks, _or just bloody sever it._ Not that the desire behind it will wither. That’s always the problem with deep-rooted temptations – you can chop your bloody body off one piece at a time, and nothing’s going to change. There’s a lot of chopping and bloodletting in the scriptures and he wonders, not for the first time, what’s so different between this and, say, sacrifices made on altars that are branded pagan. 

The blood is all the same. The hearts are all the same. 

And fuck if Crowley’s heart isn’t beating, pounding nowadays, whenever Aziraphale is around. Which makes the situation particularly difficult. He glances over at the armchair where Aziraphale is sitting, a half-drunk glass of wine between thick fingers, the soft smile, ruddy cheeks bunching up mid-sentence, in a tirade that began at the end of the evening mass and has stretched through the hours.

As it usually does. 

“C’mon, Aziraphale, that’s not how that works!” Crowley raises his glass, splattering wine over the black cloth of his trousers. There’s an edge of elation beneath his skin, something that makes him feel light, fuzzy around the edges. “You can’t just pick the parts of the doctrine that accomodate you better, you fussy bastard.”

“I know that perfectly well, thank you very much,” Aziraphale says, haughty despite the glaze that starts spreading over his blue eyes. “And I’m not doing that. I’m not a philistine, Crowley. I just don’t see why I would have to deprive myself of eating for _three hours_ before mass. That’s absurd!”

“But that’s exactly what ‘old ways’ are about. You know that.” Crowley kicks his feet below the line of the coffee table, maintaining a precarious balance of his glass between fore and middle fingers. “And if you’re going to be a stickler about rules…”

“Yes, but you know that all changed. Otherwise, we would still be fasting from midnight the night before, and that’s just preposterous.” Aziraphale makes a little moue that stirs the banked embers in Crowley’s stomach. “ _Completely_ uncivilized.”

“Then what’s it going to be, Aziraphale? Because, ‘ _if thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth,’_ sayeth the Lord,” Crowley says, smiling into the rim of his glass. “So it’s all or nothing.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Crowley. I doubt the Lord is referring to me eating cherry scones before morning mass.” Aziraphale picks up the wine bottle from the coffee table and pours himself a bit, sloshing a good amount over the centerpiece. Not that either of them says anything or actually cares. “It isn’t as if it’s a contradiction or cherry-picking certain bits. I want the Tridentine Mass back – that’s the thing. Latin is so fetching you know?”

“Fetching,” Crowley deadpans.

“Well, it is. And I’ll show you.” 

Aziraphale stands, and it’s a delight to see the wobbly confidence with which he opens his arms and turns his back to Crowley, and _Sweet Mary, Mother of Fuck_ . Yeah, he could definitely pull it off. Crowley's breath jams somewhere between his lungs and his larynx, his eyes arrested by the line of Aziraphale’s shoulders. Not that this bodes any better for him, but he is _not_ going to let his gaze wander down past the line of the belt that holds Aziraphale's trousers in place. He's already made that mistake once. 

He even made it on purpose, a second time, securing himself the need for a nice cozy spot in the confessionary soon. Crowley bites the meaty inside of his cheek and hears Aziraphale clear his throat.

" _Hoc est corpus meum, hic est sanguis meus,_ " Aziraphale drones out, raising his glass over his head. He pauses, and Crowley has never heard a more enticing lilt in his life. Which is ridiculous, because Latin isn't French, and there shouldn't be even an ounce of _anything_ in there. And then Aziraphale follows, " _quod pro vobis datur, qui pro vobis funditur_."

… _my body, given for you, poured out for you_..

Crowley's cheeks burn pink, his breath catching just the tiniest bit, because the implication of that turn of phrase has no business sounding so inviting in a tongue as dead as dead can be, and he's reading between lines that haven't been written, on pages not yet made. 

“I, for one," Crowley says, dragging his thoughts back to the sensible, "am perfectly fine with things as they are. I mean,” he weaves a hand in the air as if to grasp a particularly elusive point, “look. Can’t have the flock all estranged from us. That- that thing that old relics like Father Coolmore seem to praise so much. Don’t get it. Honestly.”

Aziraphale sits back in his armchair, movements muddled by a faint stupor, and seems to mull the statement over between sips of his wine. “Ah. Yes. I think you have a point. But you didn’t ever experience it, did you, my dear?" 

"Whassat?" He asks. 

"Oh, you know, the surfeit of devotion reeling around the room in the old days.”

"Nope, can't say I have. And no offense but, judging by history, I think this is one of those times when it's very possible you're looking at it through rose-tinted glasses," Crowley says. "What were you – four, five?"

Aziraphale stops, considers, the rim of his glass trapped between his lips, and Crowley sees the slight lift of the corner of his mouth, a thing that would have been easily missed by anyone watching him with less attention. 

"P-perhaps you're right," Aziraphale says, and his whole demeanor shifts in an instant as he seems to wither. "I think that what I miss the most is…” He looks up at Crowley with almost-liquid blue eyes. Crowley loses the ability to breathe, and desperately hopes that Aziraphale would fail to notice the way his eyes linger, the keen and quiet attention that is painstakingly clear now, without his shades. Apparently, God is in a mood to answer Crowley's prayers, because Aziraphale _tsks_ , a relaxed smile on his face, none the wiser. "Oh, you're going to laugh at me."

"Me? Never. Not about this, at least," Crowley says in earnest. 

Aziraphale hums. "Well," he says, "I think that what I miss the most is the sense of being at home, in a way." He sips his wine and stares directly at the floor. "Being at mass with my parents was such a different dynamic than the one we had back at home, so easy to hug each other under the _'peace be with you'_ and not feel as if I was being excessively demanding and… oh, look at that."

"Wot?" 

Aziraphale sets his eyes on the old grandfather clock. "It's dreadfully late. We can leave this conversation for another time. Up you go, dear boy." 

" _Nghmph_."

Crowley is dragged off the couch by the comforting pressure of Aziraphale's arm around his waist, tenderness resting on his face when he looks at him, helping him stumble to his room. And if he wasn't quite so sloshed, maybe he could gather his faculties and say something, _anything_ , to stretch this moment as long as he could. 

Because it feels like home, a bright warm thing churning inside him, and it's terrifying. 

"There we go," Aziraphale says finally, breaching the frame of Crowley's door and helping him sit on the bed. "Now, get some rest."

He's almost gone when Crowley clutches at his sleeve, pale fingers against the stark black that marks their holiness. "Not to be maudlin but… it isn't demanding, what you said."

"Pardon?"

"You know, wanting a hug now and then. It isn't…” Crowley flounders, wanting to make his point without inappropriate implications. "It's completely sensible. Shows that you care."

Aziraphale's face goes all complicated, flickering through expressions Crowley might have deciphered at another time, before fixing on a soft smile. He places a hand softly on top of the one that Crowley still has on his arm. "Thank you, my dear. I'll keep that in mind."

Crowley finally let's go, and Aziraphale walks away. And if he tosses a final glance from the door back at Crowley, his eyes flick away too quickly for anything to be read in them.

* * *

Aziraphale bows his head. Hidden at a side of the nave, he can't help but raise his eyes as the transubstantiation takes place. And they stray - _yes, stray, as lost sheep without a good Shepherd. And what kind of Shepherd am I?_ \- to Crowley, who takes precedence over the body of Christ.

_Christ. Oh, Lord._

It's easy to live without something you've never known, and Aziraphale wishes he didn't know this. Because now, whenever Crowley isn't around, he can feel the vacant, screaming emptiness around the presbytery. He has become accustomed to days filled with sharp smiles, quick words, and crimson hair. Crowley fits so perfectly, as if he had always belonged there, a votive candle on an altar rail.

_Here, with me._

At the front, Crowley lifts his arms, the edges of the chasuble pulling back along the whiteness of the alb, stretched behind Crowley's back, _like wings_ , Aziraphale thinks. 

He looks so lovely, so painfully beautiful and holy ( _definitely holier than me)_ , framed by the golden lines of the altar, and he shouldn't be sullying that beauty with wayward adulation that has no place here. His heart thumps against the dead, silent weight of the silver cross on his chest, the chain heavy around his neck, and for a moment Aziraphale feels as if his own body is nothing but a pagan temple. A tabernacle for a wretched heart. 

It's a bit pathetic, if he thinks about it, the fact that a few kind words and sweet smiles, perhaps encouraged by an overindulgence of alcohol, had been enough to make him _hope._ A hope that has no place, because Crowley's brotherly affection shouldn't be tainted… and Aziraphale’s calling is there, an ever-present mantle not to be torn asunder. 

Soon enough, the mass is over, people threading out over the floor of the nave, to the narthex, and out. He spots the expertly tailored suit of Thaddeus Dowling beside the ubiquitous pastel skirts of his wife, Harriet. His eyes follow Crowley's figure as he talks to the parishioners and dismisses Adam, the altar boy. 

Aziraphale waits until they’re all gone, and finally joins him, a brazen sort of bliss in every step echoing in the aisles. It's Sunday, the week finally having come to an end, and the possibilities of the day spread before him like unfurled petals. Starting with lunch.

Crowley turns, smiles a new smile that reaches his eyes, sending a jolt down Aziraphale’s back. Aziraphale can’t help himself, and smiles back. “Shall we?” 

* * *

“What do you fancy? We had crêpes last week.”

Crowley maneuvers the Bentley with an expertise that should tell Aziraphale he has nothing to fear, yet his fingers blanch as he grips the edge of his seat, as if he fears the car will fling him out the window at the next curve.

“Slow down, would you? I can barely appreciate the landscape at this speed.”

"What landscape? Oodles of sheep and maroon fields that're s'pposed to be green?" Crowley grins a wicked sort of grin, but the Bentley slows down, running smoothly on the motorway. “There, you happy now?”

“Yes, quite. Thank you.”

“So, have you decided what you want?”

“How about deviled kidneys? Or… not? Perhaps that's a tad too much-"

“None of that. I fully endorse indulgence. There's never ‘a tad too much’ of something good.”

"Oh, dear, you know that's not true. There is, in fact, a large selection of sins dedicated to that particular area."

"I keep forgetting, you're the life of the party."

"Oh, am I? Which parties would those be, I wonder? The ones neither you nor I attend any more?" Aziraphale asks with a smile

"Speak for yourself," Crowley huffs. "I, for one, have been invited to Mrs. Atkinson's ninety-second birthday party. Lots of debauchery and mah-jong are promised."

Aziraphale laughs, "Pity I don't get to attend. Sounds like it's going to be quite the evening."

"What are you talking about? I'm very much not into personal martyrdom, so I'm dragging you with me."

Aziraphale smiles and casts his gaze out the window to where the heathers are in bloom, the sun-dappled road weaving through soft hills breaking the bucolic peace that seeps from the interspersed trees that grow closer as they drive further from the church. The air pushing in from outside is warm, settling into his bones, making him feel perfectly content with the world. He’s so out of everything that he doesn’t hear Crowley’s question. 

“What was that?”

Crowley pushes his shades up his nose. “I said, what did you think of my sermon.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale wiggles in his seat. He probably would think something nice, if he had the foggiest idea of what the sermon had been about. If he hadn’t been quite so entranced with the priest delivering it. “Quite, er, quite charming.”

“Oh, c’mon, you can be ruthless. I won’t mind,” Crowley says, a hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. “I know mine are not the literary jewels yours are.”

“Oh!” Something inside Aziraphale twists sharply, this reawakened thing shining brightly beneath his skin. "Do you think so?"

"Oh, _psh_. 'Course I do."

"I'd frankly never considered them anything but a bit long and rather boring," Aziraphale says. Gabriel had said something about them too, about the fact that they were… well, exactly what he'd just said. Boring and long.

"Now you're fishing," Crowley says, smiling. "Yours are extremely good. Reek of talent."

Aziraphale's heart flutters in his chest. "Why, thank you my dear. You're so nice to say that."

"'S alright." Crowley's cheeks flush a lovely rosy color that Aziraphale attributes partly to the heat and partly to the fact that, as God's emissaries, they're fighting established science by wearing all black in the middle of the summer. 

They make the rest of the trip in a comfortable, peaceful silence. 

* * *

Lunch was excellent, and Aziraphale is starting to settle into that place of perfect contentment, one of these slices of pure joy that seem to be far more frequent since Crowley arrived. It’s a bit surprising how easily he’s patching up cracks that Aziraphale didn’t even realize were there. 

Surprising and exhilarating.

"Ready to go back?" Crowley asks, leaning against the roof of the Bentley. 

"Yes, I think-"

"Father Fell?" An American woman’s voice from behind him.

Aziraphale twirls on the balls of his feet. “Anathema! So good to see you.”

She approaches him and extends a hand, which Aziraphale takes in his. “How are you? How is Agnes?”

“Oh, you know. Summer is always a bit hard on the business, but we’re alright,” she says, eyeing Crowley suspiciously. 

“Oh, my dear! Allow me to introduce you to Father Crowley. He’s been living with me,” and then he rushes, a blush spreading across his face in the most transparent form of self-accusation, seeing her smile, “at the parish I mean, for the last two weeks.”

“Hello,” Crowley walks to Aziraphale’s side and offers Anathema a hand that she shakes with confidence, but with a small frown on her face. “Just to be clear, Father Fell here is a terrible roommate.”

“Oh, hush.”

“You are,” Crowley says. “Morning person, drinks all the wine-”

“I beg your pardon?” Aziraphale scoffs, but he finds he isn’t peeved at all. “As if you were the embodiment of temperance.”

“I’m not saying I am. I just don’t pinch it from under Tracy’s nose when-”

“I do no such thing!”

Anathema clears her throat, looking at them with a curious expression on her face. “Father Fell…”

“I’m- I’m sorry my dear, you were saying?”

“I wondered if you had some time to go and talk to my grandma?” She flicks her eyes inquisitively at Crowley. “If it’s possible? She’s been asking about you a lot.”

“Of course I have time.”

Anathema still seems to have doubts. “And it’s fine with Father Crowley?”

“I’m sure it will be,” he says in a moment of self-confidence. “Why don’t you go ahead, and we’ll catch up in a second?”

Anathema nods, and Aziraphale instantly feels Crowley’s eyes on him. “Why was she unsure I was going to be okay with that?”

“Er…,” Aziraphale wrings his hands. “Because her grandmother was excommunicated,” he says, hating how out-of-tune the word sounds. As if he has been thrown back to the fourteenth century. 

Crowley shrugs. “And that’s a problem because…?” 

For a moment, Aziraphale blinks as if suddenly blinded, and he certainly can’t blame the sun for it. “Well, other priests have objected to my friendship with Agnes, in the past.”

“That’s on them, and they’re certainly in the wrong.” Crowley crosses his arms over his chest. “Even if they were trying to be uppity bastards about what must and mustn't be done, there’s no rule saying you can’t be friends with whomever you like, excommunication or no.” He huffs, “Bloody hell, I hate that word.”

“Oh, my dear, you have no idea how relieved I am to hear that.” The tension that was building inside Aziraphale’s chest eases its grip on his muscles. “I’ve faced unending criticism from Gabriel about it.”

“You don’t need my approval, Aziraphale. You don’t need anyone’s approval for that. But if you need to hear it, then I’ll say that I truly think you are brave, sort of like an Angel, facing up to your brother like that,” Crowley says with a soft smile that he rarely shows. “That can’t be easy.” Aziraphale feels his throat straining around the lump lodged there.

It dawns on him like a revelation, the feeling of finding something that he didn’t know he’d been looking for. _Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you._ A shiver crawls up Aziraphale’s spine, because there is no need to knock. All his doors are flimsy excuses, thinly veiled spaces, pulsing, aching. 

“You alright there, Angel?” Crowley asks, with an open grin that squeezes all the air out of Aziraphale’s lungs. 

He nods, words swirling in his mouth unable to get out, a jumbled mixture of feelings soaring above his thundering heart as they follow after Anathema. 

* * *

When Aziraphale goes to bed that night, sleep doesn't come easily. He lies on his bed in the soft, black night, while the day plays itself in his mind, as if etched inside his eyelids.

_What am I doing? Oh, Heavens._

_I shouldn't be entertaining these thoughts, these ill-placed hopes. Crowley -_ Father Crowley _\- is a man of God, as much as I am, and that's only the first hurdle._

 _And why am I thinking about hurdles, when there's nowhere to go? This is my place, my home, a life I’ve fought for._

He doesn’t have the wherewithal to crack apart the mystery of whatever this is, trapped inside him. Guilt, thick and dark as bitumen, slurries in his veins. 

It's fine, he tells himself. There's no harm done. Crowley is a friend, and that by itself is a commodity more precious than any other thing he could have ever hoped for. 

He closes his eyes and prays. Eventually, the turmoil that has tied him into knots fades in the darkness. 

  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmu on [Tumblr](https://naromoreau.tumblr.com/) <3  
> Or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xenoscientist/) 💜


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saying bye to Halloween and now back to my appointed schedule! 
> 
> Thank you so much for being here 💕
> 
> And my love to HatKnitter as always, for the beta!
> 
> 😍😭
> 
> The absolutely amazing [Lei-Sam](https://lei-sam.tumblr.com/) <3 made art for this chapter that you can see at the end and [here](https://lei-sam.tumblr.com/post/634645418011230208/this-one-is-a-vey-very-special-thank-you-piece-for) for better resolution. 💕 Gracias Lei, desde el fondo de mi corazón!

Apparently, there's no way to escape the blasted heat. Aziraphale pushes the windows open and feels the belching waves of warmth roll into his office. Dreadful thing, the summer.

He's in absolutely no mood to attend Harriet's little soirée the following day, to entertain the certainly _honorable_ guests gathered there. He can already hear the questions that will be lobbed at him and the river of chatter to which he will be asked to offer opinions that won't matter the moment the wine gets heavy on their tongues. 

And he shouldn’t be judging, shouldn't so easily fall into the habit of dissecting and condemning, of tearing open those bloody gashes without offering some sort of healing. That is his work, after all. He has always abhorred the righteous tirades other priests discharged about people's shortcomings, about their _sins,_ while licking their lips at their own words as if they were rich wine, flowing freely down a spigot. 

As if they weren't fighting the same fight everyday, dealing with their own shortcomings. As if Aziraphale wasn't fighting that same fight, even harder of late.

Better not to think about it. 

He steps closer to the window and draws a breath – one long, slow gulp of air than seems to sizzle with the pervasive glow of sunshine surrounding and sinking into every little sprout, tree, and even into him, here, hidden, unable to escape God's generous gifts. 

Aziraphale sits in the comfortable chair at his desk, moving his pens and notepads around the desktop and into the drawers. He takes a long look at the mailpile addressed to the parish – bills to pay, requests to visit some parishioners, and one long, cream-coloured envelope that stands out from the rest. He sets it aside to read after sorting the bills and scheduling important things, puts a small stack to the side to pass on Tracy for the archives. 

Two baptisms to perform, and a desperate plea for last rites that must be delivered today. Aziraphale makes a note to pass these to Tracy first. It's difficult, sometimes, expecting people to pay fees for gifts that should be freely given, but there's not much Aziraphale can do about it. The Archidiocesis has the last say in it. New times required new approaches, Gabriel had said, no matter that Aziraphale feels like a merciless simoniac, trafficking God's Grace. But isn't that a greater sin? No one can serve two masters, and Mammon shouldn't be setting foot onto this holy terrain, much less be invited. It’s outrageous, really. 

He shakes his head. He can't entertain these thoughts, he shouldn't doubt Gabriel and the measures taken because, of course, this isn't a mindless breach of the temple and there's no spill of coinage to reverberate on the cobblestones. Jesus will not come to scourge them, won't overturn _their_ tables, will he? 

He sets his jaw and opens the long, delicate envelope. It's a note from Harriet stating, in a very succinct way, that she's cancelling her little gathering, because Thaddeus has been called with utmost urgency back to America, and he isn't coming back for a month. She also sets a new date for after Thaddeus returns, hopes it fits with Father Fell and Father Crowley's busy schedule, confidently counts on the favor of their presence, as she's also inviting the Archbishop and some other respectable church people. 

Aziraphale doesn't intend to groan, but the sound escapes the tight-drawn muscles of his throat nonetheless, when he reads about Gabriel. He loves his brother, there's no doubt, but he always feels as if he’s falling prey to his own mouth, whether it's a new opinion that shouldn't be stated in such a brunt way ( _manners, Aziraphale, you can't get yourself worked up like that for silly matters,_ Gabriel would say, laughing, when the matters at hand are nothing to laugh about at all), or a forkfull he enjoys far more than is deemed sensible. 

At least he has a month to thicken his skin and practice the smile that covers over the not-so-gentle thoughts he harbors in those situations. 

It's close to noon, and dealing with the parish's work has him famished. He would have appreciated sharing the work with Crowley, as every day, but apparently the Bentley needs some work, and Crowley insists on doing it all himself. Ridiculous creature. Aziraphale can't repress a smile, reviewing the gauntlet of memories he's stored in the quaint little cabinet of his mind. A smile on that face sprayed with freckles. A very poor joke curling those lips, all making Aziraphale feel well-sated as after a scrumptious meal, slightly dazed as after a glass of his favourite tipple. He catches himself before wandering again down a tangent, which is becoming a task he’s getting rather good at. Lots of practice recently, one could say. 

He closes the door to the office and makes his way to Tracy’s desk. 

“Hello, dear, could you please archive these?” He places the small stack on her desk. “And call Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Thomas to help them set up the schedules for baptisms.”

“Right on, Father.”

He can deal with the last rites himself. 

He turns around, decidingly searching intently, and just by a sleight of mercy he can disregard the reasons why. 

“Is Father Crowley around?” His cheeks glow a pink that’s impossible to miss. Bless the summer. 

“I believe he is at the back of the parish, dealing with that dreadful machine,” Tracy says with a smile. “Oh, but be warned, Father, he’s in a really foul mood and looking every bit like one of those boys that work at Shadwell’s, instead of a man of God.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is not as bad as all that.”

“Go on,” she says, signaling the back door. “See for yourself.”

Aziraphale commands his feet not to run, but to walk at an appropriate speed. He isn’t a bit desperate and, to be honest, ‘desperate’ is too strong a word for the fuel that seems to drip down his spine, oiling his joints, imprinting a little bounce to his gait. More like the hint of a need. No, no, _no need_ . Blast it. A perfect feeling of content. Yes, that’s more like it. Because Crowley _is_ lovely, and there’s no need - _yes, yes need_ \- to deny that.

Oh, good Lord, he’s getting all flustered. Again. 

His steps echo over the old parquet with far more force than necessary, as if he were trying to push and grind the myriad of unnecessary thoughts now sparking into his mind under the balls of his feet. Perhaps, if he tries hard enough, he will succeed. 

No such luck.

Aziraphale crosses the threshold of the back door, momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness outside, blinking slowly, getting accustomed to the goldens and full greens and blues, the bloom of pinks and reds interspersed far beyond, as a mosaic on a basilic, ethereal glass art within reach, made to adorn the landscape. 

And then he turns to his left. 

His skin crackles in the heat that buffets him whole, along his limbs, seeping beneath his cassock and coiling tightly in his stomach. Crowley is working under the bonnet of the Bentley, and he must have been for quite a while, because Aziraphale can see the damp line of sweat that makes his white vest stick to the taut muscles of his back. The vest is now a translucent thing, sheer as gossamer. His heart pounds heavily, sweat sliding down his temples as he regards the fiery sheaf of Crowley’s hair, so vibrant, and the flex of muscles when he stretches. 

Aziraphale tries to draw a single ordinary breath, to empty his lungs of the air that tastes stale, but fails miserably. 

He's more aware than ever of the weight of his hands, of how they could be used for more than holding a chalice or the beads of a rosary, of how they could cup and slide down the slopes of Crowley's shoulders, along his sides, with the same reverence.

This feeling. It's not new and yet it is, all at once, because Aziraphale can't remember a time when he ached to touch, to reach someone in this desperate way. To feel someone close, closer, enough to dispel this hollowness that's starting to manifest again. As if he had papered over cracks in a wall that is irremediably broken. 

Aziraphale licks his lips, just a cool sweep over at the seam of his mouth, to battle how parched he feels - _just a sip of water_ , he wants to say, _give me to drink the living water._

_My soul thirsts for thee._

If he could just…

But he shouldn't. Because Crowley isn't here for this. He isn't here for _him_ , and these idle, far-fetched, one-sided reveries are better off not fueled. There's a white strip on his collar, after all. 

He turns on his heels, wanting to escape, but his steps crunch hard on the gravel. 

"Hey, there, Angel," Aziraphale hears at his back, does his best not to flinch at the moniker he's only just getting used to. To that moniker he wishes would carry more than just five letters. "You leaving without saying hi? Pretty rude."

He swivels back and plasters on his best smile, the one he used to use to deflect inconvenient questions at his household while growing up. 

"Oh, no, not at all. I didn't want to intrude."

"You never intrude." Crowley frowns, "You sure everything's fine? You look a bit out of sorts." 

"No, no, my dear. I-I'm perfectly fine, tip-top condition, one might say," Aziraphale counters, giving a little laugh. "It's only the heat, I suppose."

Crowley doesn't seem convinced, but nods, "Alright. If you say so. I'll take your word for it." He grabs a soiled, black-stained cloth and rubs his hands, wiping the grease off them and tossing it aside. "I was just going inside, I think it’s almost lunch, and there's nothing else I can do here. And I need two showers. Or three lest you want to be privy to less than holy odors." 

"Oh, good Heavens, you fiend," Aziraphale smiles. "Shall we, then?"

They walk side by side in silence, the space around Aziraphale's body pulsing with more than air, and he sets his teeth hard into the plush inside of his cheek to reign himself in, trying not to think about how close and how really infinitely far they are from each other. 

Two stars in the firmament.

"I got a letter from Harriet," Aziraphale says when they reach the foyer, watching as Crowley toes one of his working boots off. "Apparently, the reunion is postponed."

Crowley cracks a smile. "Thank Christ. No need to muck about all evening trying to look all pious."

"Oh, it wouldn't be as bad as all that, would it?," Aziraphale says, although he can't stop the rush of warmth spreading inside him, that thing that buzzes in contentment because they're so often on the same page. 

"Worse even. Easier for you, always looking like a bloody cherub, but I have to watch my tongue most of the time."

"Oh, my dear, none of that," Aziraphale says, as Crowley leans forward and down to fiddle with the laces of his second boot, which resists the pulling. Aziraphale inhales the tang of musk in his next greedy lungful. "You're always so very charming."

"Only with you, Angel," Crowley says, looking at his boot, casual as anything, and Aziraphale tells himself he shouldn't be reading things into such lighthearted statements. "Ask anyone else, I'm a bit of a bastard. It's not like I want to be, but it comes out nonetheless."

"But that's not what our parishioners say. They're positively delighted with how _good_ , with how _nice_ you are." 

"Ugh,” Crowley huffs, frowning, now sitting on the floor to work at the recalcitrant boot. “'M not nice. 'M a priest, not a saint."

"Yes, well. I'm afraid that you do show that face whenever they ask for you. You never seem to say no. Especially to children."

Crowley stands, finally barefooted, hands on his hips, with a coy smile. " _Ngk_. Well. Little urchins aren't hard to handle.

"Sorry, but I strongly disagree," Aziraphale smiles, his gaze traveling down for a moment. Crowley’s feet look incredibly soft, delicate sinews and pale skin almost bright against the bonechar-black of his trousers. Aziraphale catches himself once again, and looks resolutely back up at Crowley’s face, blithely ignoring the heat on his cheeks. 

"Only because you act like a bloody adult with them. They can smell your fear, you know? You have to become one of them. Bribe the leader."

"And who that could possibly be?"

"You really have no idea of children's dynamics, have you?" Crowley says, walking to the bottom of the stairs that lead to their rooms. "It’s clearly Adam!"

"Oh, Adam is such a delightful boy."

"He thinks you're alright. For an adult. Although I may have put in a good word for you."

"Oh, my. How could ever I repay you?" Aziraphale asks, now almost chuckling.

There's the breath of a pause swelling from the floor to the ceiling, the creaking of the parquet the only answer. A strange sort of expectation hangs on Crowley’s words.

"Have dinner with me tonight," Crowley finally says, almost blurts out, earnestness in his words. Aziraphale sees the flush of what must be a soft sunburn on his cheeks. 

"You silly creature," Aziraphale laughs, "I always have dinner with you."

“So that’s a yes?”

There's something hidden running underneath, something that makes Aziraphale’s heart hammer away, with the way Crowley's words seem to grate in his throat. 

“O-of course.”

“Right,” Crowley says, his Adam’s apple bobbing with a hard swallow. “I’ll be off to shower then. See you in a bit, for lunch.”

Aziraphale watches him as he climbs the stairs without looking back. 

* * *

Crowley bends and looks into the oven, as if he could make the lasagna cook faster by sheer force of will. Which is decidedly not happening. 

He stands and sets the table, sneaking glances at the clock over the door. Aziraphale shouldn't be long. 

He'd left the parish earlier that day, telling Crowley he had to give the last rites, and he would be back soon. Crowley had seen his face go a little ashen, pinched halfway between sadness and pain, and Crowley had felt almost compelled to take him in his arms and hold him. To brush away that ache however he could.

Stupid, really.

Aziraphale had been more than accommodating in the weeks they had been living together, but that didn't mean he felt the same pull, that same hook piercing his skin, dragging every bit of Crowley towards him. 

Because it's obvious in the way Crowley's hands seek him, his skin sparking to feel just a little of Aziraphale's warmth whenever he's close enough to touch. And the fact that he's using prayers to help it to happen should make him feel bad in some way, but it's shocking how little he cares right in the moment. No matter he's left with an absolute mess of thoughts and doubts afterwards. 

And he definitely should not be expecting it to happen again everyday. He's spent too many years dealing with the aftermath of stupid decisions to not know himself, even a little. To know that, no matter how deep this runs within him, he won't force Aziraphale to accept it. Never. 

He can't let himself fall. He can't drag Aziraphale into his own delusion. 

Yeah, a bit of a hot mess, these things he's dealing with. 

Bloody Hell. 

The ding of the oven timer yanks him back to a kitchen painted cream, to the moment he's been anticipating for quite some time. Crowley fumbles with the oven's door, with the ridiculous red oven mitts. 

He pulls the lasagna out and places it in the middle of the table, taking care to select a Cabernet, a vintage he now knows Aziraphale enjoys.

He definitely ignores the way he has framed this entire evening. Aziraphale doesn't need to know, and Crowley shouldn't allow himself to think of this as anything other than a shared meal. It’s definitely not a date. Dates are for the lay people, no matter that's exactly where his mind has twirled and swirled when preparing all of this.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

He shucks off the apron just as the front door bangs shut, and his heart races in his chest. 

Aziraphale walks into the foyer, head down. Then his gaze swivels up, a smile appearing when he sees Crowley standing at the kitchen's door. 

It takes Crowley a lot of restraint not to give in to his desire to run to him, not to let it show in his expression. He gives him a simple smile instead, one that's bright and fond and, frankly, with several degrees of honesty, that in this moment, just feels right. 

Aziraphale slowly walks closer, the hem of his cassock like waves breaking against his ankles. 

"Hello, dear." He steps under the jarring lights of the kitchen, and now Crowley can see that he's definitely a bit shaken. Those eyes like sea glass not bright now, but dull. 

"Hey, Angel. How did it go?"

Aziraphale walks to the sink, opens the tap, and washes his hands, the water gushing and drowning the silence for a moment. 

"It went well, I arrived in time," Aziraphale says finally, drying his hands on a nearby cloth. "But sadly, the rest also went as you would expect."

It isn't as if Crowley doesn't know what he's talking about. He's been in those shoes more than once, and perhaps that's why he knows that this once over was particularly difficult. This time Aziraphale is at his breaking point. 

It happens sometimes.

As a cup overflowing, there's just so much misery a person can take before being overwhelmed, and the result is never nice. Crowley knows that rather well.

Aziraphale shifts in his spot, looking at Crowley with those big blue eyes terribly open, like a deer caught in the headlights. 

"Angel?" A soft sigh and nothing else. "You sure you're alright?"

Aziraphale bites his bottom lip, looking at him with something that looks too close to a plea. Crowley waits a second, watching him take one step forward, now the space reduced to less than a foot between them. 

Too fucking close. 

He can't hear anything but the rush of blood in his ears, feeling the edge of anticipation fraying him entirely, the muscles of his arms prickling to touch, to the urge rise and hold, _tight_. He's pinned in his place, too bloody afraid to move and break whatever this fragile moment might bring. 

Aziraphale wrings his hands, gaze fastened to where he's squeezing his thumbs in his palms.

"You said," Aziraphale says with a thin thread of voice, like he’s wrestling every syllable and word out of his lungs, in a rush of air that's insufficient. "You said…"

"Yeah?" Crowley's blood is spilling down his veins, thudding in his neck, up in his cheeks, his throat clicking dry. 

Aziraphale's cheeks are deliciously flushed and he reaches out, his hand searching, stopping an inch away from Crowley. It's all deeply unfair. Crowley's brain goes into a fucking riot, a loud pulse of static wafting inside, and nothing else. 

"You said," Aziraphale repeats in a whisper that sounds loud in the silence, "a hug, you said–"

Crowley's heart burns with smouldering hopes, threatening to set him alight at a stake. " _Christ_. Yeah, of course. Anything you need, Angel. Just–"

Something passes across Aziraphale's eyes, the blurred haze of a doubt, as if there were even a fucking remote chance Crowley wasn't dying to do this. 

"C'mere," Crowley says with the last wisp of air he can manage to gulp, and opens his arms.

Aziraphale falls into him like a tide, arms bending around all the odd and hard angles that are Crowley's body. He clutches the black fabric of his shirt, as if Crowley might vanish otherwise. He clasps and presses, as if there's nothing else to worry about, as if all the problems are tomorrow's burden.

Crowley embraces him just as hard, inhales the sweet scent of him, the sharp tang of his cologne, in a hot intake of air. 

Aziraphale turns his head, rests it against Crowley's shoulder, soft cheek warm even through the intervening layer of clothing. He falls almost slack, pressed against Crowley, as if he has found a home at last, and doesn't Crowley feel the exact same way? 

_My refuge, my fortress_ . _In whom I trust_. 

"Everything alright?" Crowley asks again, feeling a shuddery sigh running through Aziraphale. He's tempted to pet his hair, to burrow his nose in that blessed, warm spot where his neck looks so inviting. 

But that's not what Aziraphale needs right now. This isn't for Crowley to take as he pleases. 

"Yes," comes the answer, rumbling through him, because Aziraphale has his mouth pressed against his chest and it makes Crowley's knees go particularly weak. "It was all a bit much, I'm afraid."

"Was it?" Crowley realizes his hands are tracing some sort of pattern across Aziraphale's back and urges himself to stop. He's taking too much already and, any minute now, he's going to have to let go.

"Quite," Aziraphale shifts minutely in his arms, but doesn't move to pull away just yet, which is perfectly fine with Crowley. "And then I got too caught up thinking about that wretched party at the Dowlings’," he says more steadily, "the fact that I'm going to have to spend time with Gabriel."

"Oh."

"No, don't get me wrong," Aziraphale adds hurriedly, parting a little to look him dead in the eye and _fuck, this should be bloody illegal._ Crowley sinks a sharp canine into his lip because Aziraphale's mouth is just _right there_. "I positively love my brother, but he can be a tad over the top sometimes, and I always feel like I'm falling short of expectations."

"Hey, Angel, you're not alone this time." Crowley's heart beats a flurry in his ribcage, and his arms are still around Aziraphale, and the world is good just like this. "We're in this together, right?"

Aziraphale smiles wide, wider, and he isn't pulling away, which makes Crowley feel like bursting out of his skin. 

"Yes, I suppose you're right." 

It's said with just a wisp of a breath, and it occurs to Crowley just then that, as close and twined together as they are, they might as be well already be sharing air, speaking with borrowed lungfuls from each other. 

It could go on forever, dinner be damned. Even if Crowley can't trust himself to say anything, his tongue thick in his mouth. His heart is pounding, his whole body needing him like this. 

Just like this.

_I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go._

Oh, Sweet Holy Fuck. 

He's doomed. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmu on [Tumblr](https://naromoreau.tumblr.com/) <3  
> Or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xenoscientist/) 💜


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always my love for HatKnitter who keeps being an excellent friend and beta 💕
> 
> I have to give and gigantic shout out to the absolute wonderful [hanap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanap/pseuds/hanap) who has been invaluable while writing this chapter. Dear, thank you so much for your insight, your words, your encouragement. Love you, you amazing bean! ❤️
> 
> And also to the forever precious [quiltedspacemittens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiltedspacemittens/pseuds/quiltedspacemittens) who helped me with some sections. Thank you, bb! 💞
> 
> And I'm also thankful to the lovely [saretton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saretton/pseuds/saretton). Sar, thank you so much for helping me pick the movie, because I would NEVER would've thought of that on my own! <3 
> 
> I need to yell about the absolutely breathtaking art the WONDERFUL [goosetooths](https://goosetooths.tumblr.com/) did for this chapter. Sev, my friend, you came for my kneecaps and I'm GRATEFUL beyond words. ❤️😭
> 
> Thank you all, my fellow parishioners!

_I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,_  
_or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off._  
_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,_  
_in secret, between the shadow and the soul._  
  
_I love you as the plant that never blooms_  
_but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;_  
_thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,_  
_risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body._  
  
_I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where._  
_I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;_  
_so I love you because I know no other way than this:_  
  
_where I does not exist, nor you,_  
_so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,_  
_so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep_.

(Pablo Neruda)

* * *

There's no one on Earth who can play Crowley better for a fool than himself. It shouldn't have surprised him as much as it does. After all, you don't go trudging along through life, reaching almost forty, ignoring the worst facets of your own Achilles heel. 

Which is, in this case, the fact that Crowley is always willing to ignore facts – bits and pieces of things he should actually have blazed in his brain. Sort of a failed survival instinct. Had gotten him in a real spot of trouble more than twenty years ago, hanging around the wrong crowd, downplaying the real scope of the frankly idiotic decisions he used to make every other fortnight, but in the end it wasn’t – _it isn’t_ – worse than what he’s doing right now.

Ignoring all the alarm signals blaring inside him, that barb that actually pokes at the ‘ _you’re fucking it up_ ’ button and should force him to back down, because he has absolutely and completely fallen for Aziraphale. 

And he’s a stupid fool if he even considers, entertains, the notion that something, anything, good could come of this. Some rational, frankly sour, portion of his waking mind tells him he’s two leaps ahead of himself. Because this burning, blazing thing that he’s just cracked open is only a thorn in _his_ heart and, as long as he keeps it away from prying eyes, neatly tucked into the folds of his vestments as a memory, a christening favor, it can’t hurt Aziraphale.

Right now that’s all that matters. 

He should stay away. 

But it’s just too bloody hard. The need strums too deeply, gnawing at his marrow, and he finds himself in a struggle to try to be sensible, distracted by the thrill squirming in his stomach in remembrance of a hug. A memory that still sustains him after weeks, like manna fallen from Heaven. 

It's making him face that dark, ominous place at the back of his mind, third corridor to the left in his heart, that always swarms with a never-quenched hope. It's dangerous. 

He's been trying to shove the thoughts away while the weekly parish reunion takes place, two hours stretched impossibly long in winded discussions about the state of the walls, the not-present holes in the ceiling, and the village scone-baking contest, which apparently is quite the attraction, Crowley’s surprised to discover. 

When it finally all winds down, Crowley finds himself walking down the path back to the vicarage, his cassock a lone inkblot staining the land, following the dusk, the soft light spilling through clouds. There's a slight tingle at the base of his spine, coming alive at the prospect of having Aziraphale close. Anticipation of a slow night, sluiced with wine, where he could pretend this process of inching forward isn't absolutely wrecking him. 

For all intents and purposes, this is just another routine step in the slow days they share, but Crowley's mind isn't a good enough liar to convince himself. He craves these slices of life as he has never craved anything before.

He steps into the foyer, knowing Aziraphale must already be in their living room waiting for him to arrive, an uncorked bottle of wine on the table. 

He washes his hands in the small bathroom on the ground floor, artfully tousles his hair because, well, it isn't hurting anyone to try to look his damn best, is it? 

_Vanity_ , ever helpful, the mirror screams. 

Crowley sneers. It can sod right off, for all he cares. 

He climbs the stairs in strides of three, his heart beating like a wild hare. 

"Oh, good, you're here," Aziraphale says the moment he steps one foot on the parquet. His voice is honest and earnest, and he's smiling at Crowley as if his presence is the greatest of blessings, and something squirms and writhes in his chest.

Aziraphale is sitting on the sofa with a book in his hands, his reading glasses perfectly perched atop the line of his ridiculously adorable button nose. 

It’s absolutely unfair. 

"No thanks to that bloody circle of blabbers." He saunters forward, reaching his assigned spot of every single night, at one end of the sofa. "Parrots, the lot of them. Can't believe people can talk that much about plumbing."

Aziraphale guffaws, leaving his book aside and giving him a glass of wine, "They can be a tad overbearing, I'm afraid. But they are always ever so helpful."

"Yeah. No." Crowley sips his wine and places the glass back on the table, "That they are. And effective. Much more so than you or I could possibly be."

"Oh, speak for yourself, dear boy," Aziraphale laughs, drinking his own wine, and Crowley can't take the detour before noticing the glistening edge on his lips once the glass is out of the way. "Some of us are actually quite handy at such tasks."

"And by us, you mean you?"

"Yes, rather."

"Well, by all means, the scone-baking contest is under your jurisdiction now."

Aziraphale's brows leap to his hairline, the slightest bristle between them, "Oh. No, no, no. I couldn't possibly…”

"You can. You just said you can. It's settled now, Angel. Resistance is futile."

Crowley smirks, seeing him sputter before grunting something under his breath. 

"Oh, very well. You win, you fiend. You always manage to muck up my plans," Aziraphale huffs. Crowley grins broadly and settles deeper, ensconced in the sofa, watching Aziraphale's face still pinched in a grimace, before he speaks again. "Then, if only for that, I believe it's my turn to pick something to watch.”

This. This is the moment when Crowley's will teeters. It’s like standing on quicksand. It's nothing more than human courtesy, Crowley tells himself, and he has basked, unmoored, in the nearness of Aziraphale for several nights now. 

They always end up drifting a few inches closer, but Crowley feels like a boat relentlessly dragged toward the rocks, condemned to become a shipwreck. No, much more like Jonah, willingly tossed into the sea to drown, and he feels it every time he looks at those eyes like sea-glass.

He can't keep doing this. 

But Aziraphale is already turning on the TV that a parishioner had ‘donated’, along with an outdated DVD player. Crowley thought those didn’t even exist anymore. 

He stays put, eyes hidden in the safe haven behind his shades, trying to needle his heart into obeying his head and do what must be done. It’s no use. 

Aziraphale opens a case and puts on the movie, turning to look at him. The whole focus of his attention on Crowley's face, and there's nothing he can do but stay. 

"I hope you like _I Confess,_ " Aziraphale says.

"Bit on the nose, that, isn't it? Didn't have you penned for a Hitchcock fan."

"Well, there's quite a bit you still don't know about me, dear boy," Aziraphale says over his shoulder. Crowley grapples for a single, ordinary swallow, because suddenly his tongue feels oddly thick. 

_Don't I know it._

Aziraphale walks to the back wall and switches the lights off, setting the room in darkness.

"I thought maybe you could remove your sunglasses and be more comfortable," Aziraphale answers to a question not yet uttered, walking back to the sofa.

Even in the dimness, Crowley can see the soft, exquisite arc of Aziraphale's jaw, the plump line of his lips as he smiles at him. Heat rises to his cheeks as he watches the way Aziraphale's eyes catch the silver glimmer of the screen. 

They are just a cushion apart, and words become a blur in Crowley's head. He should leave. 

"You know," he says, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck that feels like boiling under the collar. "I'm a bit knackered, Angel. I think it's off to the Land of Nod for me."

"Oh," Aziraphale's brow etches, furrows ever so slightly, before the soft echo of a downward curve draws in his mouth. "Perhaps…" Crowley sees him pulling at the afghan that hangs over the back of the couch, the movement of his hand so swift Crowley can't process the tremor he thinks he saw in it while it rested on Aziraphale's thigh. "Perhaps you can lie here while we watch. I think," he clears his throat, "it would help you relax a bit."

 _Christ's right bollock_.

There are a thousand and one reasons why saying ‘ _No’_ is what Crowley should be doing, but he has never been attuned to the logical framework of decision-making. Especially not now, when every shred of coherent and superior thought is being obliterated, as he watches Aziraphale fold the afghan and place it on his lap. 

"Uh." His throat closes, grinding the words out. "Yeah. Sounds good."

He’s careening off his axis, falling off a cliff, that pull and squeeze at the pit of his stomach leaving him breathless as he folds his shades and places them on the coffee table.

His heart beats in his temples, and when he finally rests his head on the blessed cradle of Aziraphale's legs, he wishes he could stop time. Just a second stretched long, to savor the warmth. 

"There," Aziraphale whispers, and Crowley thinks there's a faint sort of tremor in his voice, just the tiniest breathless tint in his words. 

Crowley gets it. It isn't personal. 

Aziraphale is barely coming to terms with and reconciling whatever fucked-up sense of family and closeness he grew up with. Convincing himself that reaching out isn't a burden. 

It isn't personal, yet how he wishes it was. 

"Are you comfortable?" Aziraphale asks, shifting minutely, and Crowley tries not to think in the heavy presence of the broad thighs under him, because he doesn't want to ruin the front line of his trousers. After all, he’s a man, a weak piece of flesh and bone, torn in places. 

He gives a sharp little exhale and sets his jaw, "Yeah. Perfect."

He doesn't dare look up. 

Aziraphale's hand hovers over him, and for a single, fleeting second, Crowley thinks he's going to place his palm on his chest and carve out this hidden feeling pulsing in his hammering heart, baring it for the world to see. To be shunned by him. But Aziraphale maneuvers to the side, grabs the remote, and starts the movie. Crowley tries to forcefully push down the disappointment bubbling inside him.

He sees the first frames of black and white roll across the screen and, much despite himself, he can't stop that frisson of elation, that spark thrumming at the tips of his fingers, because this is much more than he could have possibly expected, even when his blood is running hot as never before.

He's taking too much, a ruinous advantage, because Aziraphale is none the wiser, and if he knew...

God, if he knew…

Crowley can't taint him like that. 

He focuses on the movie, watching without seeing, every sense narrowed to the immediate presence of Aziraphale. His scent, the almost silent woosh of every intake of breath, the corner of a pinky finger delicately resting over the armrest. Because Crowley doesn't dare to look up at that beautiful face. 

They're almost halfway into the ordeal of watching Father Logan fall into the spiral of drama when Aziraphale speaks.

"Don't you think it's a tad absurd?"

Crowley cranes his neck to finally look at him, and Aziraphale's eyes are twinkling with something odd. "What?"

"He doesn't get to speak the truth because he's forced by the secrecy of the Confessional. Even when a man is dead."

"Not much he can do. That’s just how things work," Crowley agrees, with caution.

"Yes, but doesn't it bother you?"

"Wot?"

"The fact that we have to restrain ourselves from taking moral actions because of the Seal of Confession? When we're allegedly, as priests, trying to uphold and inspire a moral standing?"

"Well, ngh, yeah." The fact is that Crowley has a deeply scrutinized collection of things that anger him, always simmering below his skin. He doesn't voice them because, after so many years, he's lost all hope of being able to do anything, of finding someone who cares. A warm and heavy weight settles in his stomach. "To be fair, it does." He licks his lips as he considers for a second and follows with, "You wanna know what I really think about it?"

Aziraphale smiles and Crowley thinks the attention of those eyes might singe his skin off. "Of course. You do know you can always trust me."

"Thanks," he croaks out, fixing his stare on the silent ceiling. "Er, well. I've– I’ve always thought it's mostly a coercive way of meddling with people's lives. Of keeping the flock in check, because you know their dirty little secrets."

"Oh, but we could never act upon them,” Aziraphale says with a frown. 

"Yeah. But they know you know. It’s shame. That's, er, a really good way of making things work. Knowing you have people's souls in your hands, so to speak."

"Oh,” Aziraphale says, a little small. A little too quiet. “I gather you don't like that."

“Not really. It feels like being above the law of men. The very ones we’re trying to guide, and it’s like… are we really above them?” He swallows, finally fixing his gaze on Aziraphale. “Don’t think so.”

Aziraphale's face shows something complicated. “Yes... we aren’t, are we?”

"Can’t escape it, though.” Crowley shrugs, rubbing his shoulder against the swell of Aziraphale’s stomach. He grits his teeth, shoving the twinge in his gut to the kerb. “Doesn't mean I think a few Hail Marys are going to do nowt, with people’s problems."

Aziraphale bites his lip, and Crowley turns his attention to the screen because that’s a sight he can deal with right now. 

A few moments pass. “It’s also an exercise of trust,” Aziraphale offers, with some sort of quiet shyness.

“Wassat?” 

“To tell someone things you have buried inside,” he hurriedly adds, and for all Crowley knows about him by now, he would be wringing his hands if he could. Which means this is something Aziraphale deeply cares about, something he has had brewing inside for some time. “Even if they’re not… ideal.” 

Crowley twists, disregarding the fact he’s brushing, _pressing_ , swaths of clothed skin against Aziraphale in a manner that is probably not very sensible. “Yeah, but that’s also what friends are for, you know? And friends aren’t gonna impose a Penance because you ate too much, or wanted to kick your boss in the bollocks.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale blinks, and gives him a strained smile. “Yes. When you _have_ them.”

It’s the thinned voice that does it, cuts Crowley to the quick. That pained edge that tells him that Aziraphale isn’t talking about anyone else but him. His heart leaps to his throat, and the words stumble out of his mouth. 

“Well, yes, you have one now.” Crowley gives him his best nonchalant smile. As if it’s nothing. As if having Aziraphale in his life isn’t the only bright thing in the cavernous warren of his heart recently, a flash of light among darkness like the pure white at his throat. Much more human, far more honest. A spark ready to set a fire, impossible to be banked. “Stuck with me, you are.”

Aziraphale laughs. “I– I didn’t want to assume. It isn’t as if you have many choices here.”

“Oodles of choices, I have,” Crowley says and realizes Aziraphale’s hand is placed on his forearm, an aching nearness that makes his cheeks flush with heat. The air feels stifling and his heart is a heavy, odd drum, but he presses on. “Tracy, Mrs. Potter, Adam," he follows, counting his fingers. "Well, you see. Popularity central, me.”

“Yes, quite, my dear," Aziraphale concedes. 

He isn't sure where it’s coming from, this need to bare himself before Aziraphale, and he isn't even sure if it’s a good idea. And it probably isn't, but he can feel the words frothing, sizzling in his throat as he speaks. “Wanna know I’m serious?”

“Mmm?”

“There’s… something I haven’t told anyone in a while," Crowley says, almost tasting his own urgency in every syllable. "Not anyone that matters."

Aziraphale cocks a brow. “Oh?”

“It isn’t anything bad. I didn’t kill anyone, don’t look at me like that.”

“Well, you’re being terribly dramatic after all.”

“Yeah." There's a crackling along his spine, one of fear. A fear that climbs and twines and settles blazing on his tongue. What if Aziraphale…? _Bugger all_. "It’s something of a … I’m gay.”

Crowley thinks he can hear the loud roar of his own heart, the muttering of his thoughts muddled into one in the silence that follows 

“Ah," Aziraphale whispers.

A sluice of ice down Crowley's back. “That’s it?”

 _Stupid, just stupid_ . _Of course it was too bloody much, and now Aziraphale is going to shun him, or…_

“I’m sorry, dear boy," Aziraphale says, cutting off the avalanche in a strike. "You just caught me off guard. I see nothing wrong with that.”

He's smiling, like he really means it, his eyes glimmering with something bright. 

“Despite what the church says about it?” asks Crowley, insides exposed like Christ on the cross by Longinus' spear. 

“Well, biblically speaking, we shouldn’t be wearing garments made from two different threads, yet look at all of us.” Aziraphale laughs, clear like bells tolling in the early call for Mass, stark relief in a grey morning. The ice down Crowley’s throat thaws in its warmth. “I assure you, I have absolutely no problems with it.”

“Er. Good to know.”

And, as if conjured up by trust given, he feels Aziraphale's fingers weaving in his hair, tips running along his scalp. Soothing. A gift given, added to an already huge pile. 

… _and to everyone who has, more will be given..._

Crowley looks at Aziraphale, but he's already focused back on the movie. 

Aziraphale doesn't stop petting his hair until the credits roll. 

* * *

Night has already settled, warm and silent over the vicarage, but Aziraphale can't sleep. 

He can feel every single inch of him aflame, every nerve and sinew working in overload to fight a phantom sensation. The softness of auburn hair spilled like wine in his fingers, intoxicating warmth pressed on his legs. Aziraphale squirms in his franciscan bed – hard, thin mattress – and presses the heels of his hands onto his thighs to block the feeling. As if the body he yearns for was still lying so sweetly, so intimately against him, the beautiful unmasked eyes turning up to look into his. 

It’s madness, this. 

He turns to his side, pressing his warm cheek against the cool pillowcase, wishing the cotton could soothe the fire licking at his insides. His brain is a mess of rippling thoughts, memories grazed with sweaty, trembling fingers that ache to hold and grasp. Tightly. 

Aziraphale knows he _should_ have stopped. He’s absolutely more than certain that this mask of camaraderie he’s pushing in Crowley’s direction is transparently self-serving. For a reason he can’t – _doesn’t want to_ – name, he’s completely disregarding it. 

He releases a shuddering exhale and clutches at the cross that hangs from his neck, even in his sleep, and the silver seems to burn like a firebrand on his palm. 

He has never felt this way, brimming with an untamed need to hold, to touch and be touched in return. _My cup runneth over_. As if it finally slots into place, the match of a set pair, lost already a lifetime, ready to board the Ark. 

The blasphemy twinges in his chest. 

It’s a testament to his own delusion, the fact he isn’t swayed by it in the slightest. His mind wanders again back to that sofa where the best hour of his life unfolded in front of the telly. Rather a dull background for the stream of emotions that wrecked him while he held Crowley, almost in his arms. He replays the scenario to get a bit more of him, to pretend, if only for a moment, that he isn’t balancing on the ledge of this forbidden thing. Relishing every breath, every shift, to gaze at every inch of bare skin revealed by Crowley’s twisting. 

_Good Lord_ , what had he been thinking?

There isn’t a safe path back to the docks. He’s lost at the sea. 

Because whenever he speaks with Crowley, it’s like no one else exists. He's a fixed point under Crowley’s attention when words spill out of his mouth. And Crowley never mocks him, never laughs at him, but listens and teases, and Aziraphale’s cheeks flush pink, but he knows there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. 

And he speaks about his youth, about years long forgotten, and discovers he’s now, again, more than a cassock, more than a bent duty. He sees it when Crowley comes _Home_ from an errand and brings chocolate truffles because Aziraphale likes them, learning within a few weeks that he prefers mint over almonds as filling. Things no one else ever noticed. 

He has nuances. He’s much more than a priest. 

Crowley really looks at _him_.

Not that any of it matters. 

He can’t toss everything to the wind to chase a wish, a thing as elusive as the puff of smoke of a blown candle. Because Crowley’s affection is pure and untainted, and every time Aziraphale’s gaze traces the lines of his lips, the angle of his neck, he knows he’s polluting this sacred thing he’s been given. 

There’d been a moment, though, when his heart had soared. When Crowley’s confession had come, he’d actually entertained a world, an impossible world, with lazy mornings and tangled limbs, lips on skin, and red hair splayed on white sheets beneath him. 

Aziraphale had been terribly tempted to say his own piece.

He'd actually bit the inside of his cheek to shove off the images ravaging his mind, and it was utterly, positively ridiculous, because even in that world, he wouldn’t be Crowley’s choice. 

Because Crowley had chosen the Lord.

Aziraphale had even directed one low, measly, knowingly fruitless prayer above. As he hadn’t done in a lifetime. It was pointless. He should’ve known by now that that was a blocked street. God had never answered, and Aziraphale inwardly knows it’s because of him. 

There aren’t words whispered back to those who doubt.

He rises from the bed on wobbly legs, forcing his heavy limbs to sustain him, the soles of his feet tingling on the cool parquet. It’s dark here, just a sliver of silver painted on the floor by the moon outside. Aziraphale fetches his rosary and his _Liturgy of the Hours_ from his bedside table, ready to meet Vigils, even though the habit is long gone in the clergy. 

It’s hard to let tradition go. 

He makes his way out of his room, throwing his robe around his shoulders, knowing the place by heart. He rolls a bead between his fingers, a _Pater Noster_ between dry lips before setting on the hymns. 

There’s no one who can hear him, and if he marks the ‘pray for us sinners’ a bit louder than usual, it’s lost to the walls. 

Aziraphale moves with the cadence of blessed words, striving for solace because, with the growing unease taking more room in his chest, he might as well be giving last rites. It barely leaves enough space for his heart. 

His eyes adjust to the sparse light, his gaze suddenly seized by the pool of moonlit floor just outside Crowley’s bedroom. 

He _ought_ not to. 

He does anyway. 

He stands at the threshold of the open door, and for a fleeting instant there's the image of blood on the lintel, on the doorstops, dripping down, as if he were to start the Passover, struggling to put a foot inside. 

Crowley is sleeping soundly, the rise of his chest soft under his pyjamas. He has kicked the sheets down to his feet and Aziraphale feels his hand twitching out, catches himself mid-reach. 

There's nothing wrong in it, in admiring, up close, the serene beauty of him like this. The lines and curves of draped fabric allow him to catch agonizing glimpses of narrow hips, the sharp lines of long legs, the tight angles of a lean torso. 

Aziraphale heaves a breath and pulls the sheets up with reverence, a silent prayer humming in his throat. He remembers Crowley's scent drifting up to him from earlier that night, the heat of his body so perfect on him, and that heavy, hot curl settles between his legs. His hand hovers over Crowley, the bestowing of a benediction in form, twisted in its intent. 

_Oh, Lord, forgive our trespasses_. 

Aziraphale's heartbeat is loud in his ears, his eyes traveling to where Crowley's lips are parted pink, and he feels his insides torn in two like the veil of the temple. 

It aches, the thrum of a need not met, watching and knowing there's nothing he can do – nothing he _should do_ – but walk away.

Crowley shifts then, a red curl falling over the pristine plane of his forehead, his throat rippling in a swallow. There's fire in Aziraphale's veins, and he finds his hand drifting closer to Crowley's face, smoothing the lock away. 

He desperately wrestles the soothing words of a Psalm to ground his jarred nerves. 

… _Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous_...

And the words fall like stones down a well, echoing inside him. He feels the sting of tears prickling at his lashes, and almost without thinking, he drags his hand down along Crowley's cheek. 

Crowley stirs, and before the block of ice settles in Aziraphale's stomach, he presses his face into Aziraphale's palm. 

Aziraphale's heart quietens. A peace that has eluded him his whole life twines and circles him like fine silk, caressing his soul.

" _Angel_ ," Crowley whispers then with a smile, words almost lost to the room, nothing more than a heated rush of air. 

Because he's still asleep, and Aziraphale is pinned in place, unwilling to let go. 

How can this be a sin? How can this beautiful, bright thing, flaming like a torch in his dark night, be anything but divine?

_And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul._

His lips burn with the need to lean down and press them onto that sleepy cheek. 

No, Aziraphale thinks, love can never be a sin.

  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to listen to a song that speaks for them [Head and Heart by America](https://youtu.be/KWsPXxIGTkg) is the one I have in mind. ✨💞
> 
> Hmu on [Tumblr](https://naromoreau.tumblr.com/) <3  
> Or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xenoscientist/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to the loveliest reprobate out there [hanap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanap/pseuds/hanap) for all their encouragement and ear and ideas and cheerleading. THANK U BB
> 
> And to my excellent beta [Hatknitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HatKnitter) who keeps graciously granting me her time and effort. Thank you so much!!!

It's still early, but not yet dawn. Night has just loosened its tired grip on the dark sky. Aziraphale listens to the quiet murmur of the waking noises outside while his heart still thumps and makes an odd sort of pattering in his chest. He hears the spirited chirping of nuthatches, the sorrowful call of a barn-owl. 

He had never regretted living so far out in the country. He’d always liked the simplicity, the pastoral gleam of the landscape that so suited his work. But right now he wishes he could melt and mingle with the traffic of London, with the noise and boisterous chaos of a siren, fitfully wailing at the strangest hours, with the stubborn honking upon honking of drivers wishing they could go up to ninety miles per hour, in a rush to get to wherever. 

Something he could fill the sleepless night with. 

The hours had crept slowly around Aziraphale as he lay in bed fighting the impulse to run back to Crowley's room. Fighting back the need to touch, to dip his fingers into every divot of Crowley's body, along the play of muscle, and seek beneath cloth to skin. 

To kiss and gasp and fawn at Crowley's mouth, his cheeks. To kiss, and kiss and  _ kiss _ . 

His fingers curl around his crucifix as he relives Crowley’s expression, the soft sighs so loud in the small room, the way he had sought him, reflexively, unthinking, all the more sincere. 

_ Could it be _ ?

It’s blistering, this feeling, and even though there’s that thorn – those spurious words that always,  _ always _ sound like Gabriel talking about guilt, speaking the same words that always manage to hearken Aziraphale back twenty years – right now, he couldn't care less. 

He recalls that time, some thirty-odd years ago, that dark-haired boy with grey eyes. That time when he had finally realized what this thing pawing at his insides was. 

And even then, fumbling and tremulous, exhilarated and inexperienced, falling at the edge of a shocking need, it had never felt like this. 

Because this isn't lust – at least not only that. Now he has the wherewithal to accept, to understand, feeling his cheeks warm. 

He  _ loves _ Crowley. Loves him as a priest shouldn't love a man, with that roll of fire in his gut whenever he thinks of him, and that steadfastness that tells him he will continue to do so in silence. To spare him.

To not push him into sin. Because they're not free.

_ Lord, let him be spared _ , he prays, sending his thought to make its pristine path up above. 

Aziraphale’s head is filled with words, prayers as useless as a sieve to drain an ocean, like the child at the seaside. With verses and hymns and Crowley saying, ‘you’re an angel, I don’t think you can do the wrong thing,’ and laughing about it when Aziraphale was silly enough to point out that yes, he had been waiting until the last minute to confirm their attendance at Harriet’s soirée because someone had to teach her a lesson about humility, petty as the action might be. Thank you very much. 

And above all, he thinks of a different Confession, of Saint Augustine and his books and his pierced heart, because right now there’s something that twists inside him, and all those long years that have dragged and dragged have brought him here, and it feels as if he’s converting. 

Heart opening to a new faith, and it's heresy. He knows it is. 

_ My heart is restless until I find rest in you _ . 

There’s no use. He won’t sleep tonight. 

He gets up for the second time that night, stumbling out of the bed, discarding his duvet, and despite the warmth of the summer his feet are icy. But the memory of brushing Crowley’s cheek is seared in the forefront of his mind, and apparently his fingers also refuse to let that ghostly tingling vanish. 

Aziraphale looks down at himself, at the pale movement of his hands as he finishes buttoning up his cassock and placing the clerical collar where it belongs. 

It feels a lot like a sham.

For years, he's gone through the motions of getting himself ready for the day without thinking too much about it, giving it the same attention he puts into eating his meals, going through expenses of the parish, and sifting through the mail.

But as he arranges the crucifix neatly on his chest, he can't help but think about a sleight of hand, all his own doing, that had blinded him to the realization that this is no different from wearing a costume.

Aziraphale wrenches his eyes closed and heaves one deep, single breath. 

It's time for Lauds already, perhaps just a bit early. But Aziraphale has nowhere else to go, and if he stays here he will continue to see Crowley's face in every angle of his room, feel his own guilt dripping like blood from his chest. 

He makes his way out of the vicarage, purposely avoiding Crowley's room, closing his eyes as he trudges forward seeking the stairs. 

_ Don't look back _ , he says to himself,  _ or you'll be swept away _ . 

He reaches the front door and yanks it open.

The slow breeze whips around Aziraphale's face, through his already-ruffled hair. Swirls around the nearby oaks, rustling the leaves, rustling the hem of his cassock, finding its way by heart around his silent figure as if greeting an old friend. 

The gravel crunches beneath his loafers while Aziraphale twists and wrings his hands, finally steadying when he reaches the front door of the church. 

He'll pray. He'll pray to debride himself. 

The door opens with a loud creak, and Aziraphale is welcomed by the silent almost-darkness. At one side, there are some low-voltage bulbs on at the feet of an image of Our Lady of Lourdes, another at the base of the Holy Family. 

But nothing registers over a choked whisper coming from the front row. 

" _ Angel _ ." 

Aziraphale's heart stutters, his blood beating in his throat, in his temples. His breathing, heavy and ragged. 

It's as if he can't get away from Crowley, as if the moments were all knitted together woven into one.

His feet move forward all of their own accord, passing the heavy presence of the accusing pews, feeling lost amid the emptiness of this sanctum that throws itself on him. 

But not empty. 

Because Crowley's here.

When he stops, meters away from the altar, where Crowley has lit a candle, he sees the flaming red, stark in the firelight flow. Crowley has removed his sunglasses and Aziraphale's chest lurches and twists, because those eyes, bright and gold, are always enough to undo him. 

Crowley's gripping at the beads of a rosary, and it's clear he's been praying. Aziraphale can barely meet his gaze, not knowing whether Crowley has any idea of his transgression, and if he does, does he hate Aziraphale for it? 

"What are you doing here?" Crowley asks, but he sounds only surprised and not affronted. "It's too early. Even for you."

"I should be saying that." Aziraphale tries not to think about how hoarse his voice is. "I don't think I've ever seen you awake at this hour. Are you alright?"

"Yeah." Crowley licks his lips, looking down at his hands. "I just– I, er, I had a bad dream. That's all."

"Oh," Aziraphale says. "Would you like to talk about it?"

Aziraphale isn't quite sure because the light is scarce, but he thinks Crowley's ears are suddenly beet red. 

"Not particularly," Crowley shrugs. And then he adds, "but if you want…”

"What?" Aziraphale blurts out, too urgent to be conspicuous. 

"Maybe we could pray. Together, I mean."

Something smooth and calm moves down Aziraphale's throat. "That sounds like a delightful idea."

Crowley scoots further into the pew and Aziraphale sits at his side. Their thighs are pressed against each other, warm and firm and grounding. Aziraphale can't help but realize that even when Crowley  _ could  _ move to avoid it, he doesn't do it. 

Not that Aziraphale  _ wants _ that. He really ought to stop reading too much into things. 

"Where were you?" Aziraphale asks, signaling the rosary. 

"Ah, last mystery, actually."

Aziraphale rummages in the pocket of his cassock and finds it empty, except for a few bits of lint.

"Oh, bugger." 

Crowley cocks a brow and smiles, "Why, an Angel swearing in the House of the Lord? These must be the final days indeed."

"Oh, shush, you," Aziraphale says, plaintively. "I left my rosary in my room."

"Really now? You, of all people?" Crowley teases.

"Well, yes. I'll have you know I'm only human."

"Lies. You're an angel." 

"That's an old chestnut, you know?"

Crowley shifts in his spot, and it's only a reminder of how excruciatingly close they are to each other. "Seriously, Angel. Last week you forgot it was your turn for morning Mass. What's got in your head?"

_ Quite a lot of you, apparently. _

Aziraphale sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose to hide the flush that's in riotous bloom on his cheeks. "I could dash back and get it–"

"Or we could share mine? It's not a big deal."

"Could we?" He asks, hopefully. "I really don't want to make the trip back upstairs."

"Yeah. 'Course we can. Here." Crowley extends the rosary between them, and it clinks merrily. Aziraphale secures a bead between his fingers.

He's about to close his eyes when he feels Crowley's hand curling over his, his thumb and forefinger pressing against Aziraphale’s own, around the bead. 

Aziraphale stares at where their hands are joined and something clicks into place. For twenty years he's lived at peace -  _ resigned, sorrowful _ \- not needing another hand, not needing a touch or a hug or a smile. 

And now, he can't… he can't...

He doesn't think he could go back to those bleak, grey years, back to being blind and empty. To those years when the space about his body was a barrier and not just air. 

_ Forty years dying in a desert. _

It occurs to him then that, in these two months, Crowley has touched him more than any other human on the face of Earth. 

And Aziraphale belongs to him, he knows. Body and soul. 

_ Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. _

His body is aflame, because Crowley's arm is now pressed against his. Shoulder, elbow, forearm. It's as if suddenly Aziraphale's whole being is defined by the swaths of contact, by the warmth seeping through and lighting him from the inside. 

It's like standing in a neverending dawn, as if his whole world were stuck in the moment, just at the brink of experiencing a light he had only dreamed off.

He feels the air knocked out of his lungs, and he doesn't dare to move, too afraid that Crowley might retreat, leaving him bare and hollow again. He can hear the heavy intake of every single one of his breaths.

Crowley's touch is warm and gentle, and Aziraphale cranes his neck in a pitiful attempt to steal more of closeness. Crowley has leaned a bit forward, his head tilted towards Aziraphale just the barest amount, but his eyes are closed and Aziraphale thinks that perhaps there's still some mercy spared for him.

He doesn't think he could have survived an up-close look into those eyes. 

"Shall we?" Crowley asks softly. 

Aziraphale swallows thickly, and he can't help it. He leans towards Crowley as well, and closes his eyes. "Yes."

They start the Lord's Prayer, their words whispered and mingling in the darkness, and every time they move up a bead, slipping slowly to the end, Aziraphale wishes he could preserve this moment in amber. 

The way Crowley's voice sounds, low and rich, the weight of his hand over his, his own treacherous heart pounding and pounding until he feels it might shatter his ribs. Five Hail Marys in, his arm sags and Aziraphale rests their bundled hands over the soft curve of his knee. He’s almost certain he feels the light roll of a shudder wracking Crowley then, but there’s an open window close to the altar, and it’s fairly easy to assume a stray whoosh of wind is to blame. 

Aziraphale speaks the words, but they’re meaningless. 

All too soon they finish and, with the last sentence of the Creed, Aziraphale fights the disappointment that rises like a tide as he waits for Crowley to pull back. 

He pries his eyes open and his breath jambs in his throat. 

Aziraphale hadn’t realized they were so close, their faces just a few inches apart. Crowley’s gaze is fastened to him, taking him in with an attention that blazes in his golden eyes, and his hand isn’t moving. It is impossible for him to miss the deep flush of Aziraphale’s cheeks, his lips slightly parted because he can’t help it. Sunrise has come, and under the stained-glass light, Crowley looks breathtaking. Hair as red as flame, face as chiselled marble, and the smooth line of his neck that the collar fails to hide entirely. Aziraphale’s nose is full of sandalwood, and he can feel the gust of Crowley’s breath hot over his skin, tingling just above his mouth

He isn’t sure he knows how to breathe, how to draw in the air that seems scarce and scorching in his lungs. Somewhere at the back of his mind he’s thankful for the pew, for being seated, because his knees feel wobbly and they would have given up on him if he were standing. It’s entirely possible they still will. 

Crowley licks his lips, his face pink, and Aziraphale’s heart seems to seize in his chest, his throat working around swallows that burn his mouth, his fingertips buzzing from their contact. He forgets about the collar, about everything and anything that happened before now, because then Crowley leans in and stops just a breath away. 

It’s as if the Earth has drawn to a halt, as if the room has been robbed of sound. 

Aziraphale’s heart thuds under every inch of his skin, the world narrowed down to their locked hands, and Crowley’s lips, and the tightness in his stomach. 

And he’s swept away. Away from the shore and right into a raging storm.

“You aren’t moving,” Crowley rasps, deep and rough like sand in a desert. It isn’t a statement, but a realization, and Aziraphale feels fear lodge in his chest. 

He wants this. Lord, how he wants  _ him _ . He feels it strumming in his veins. But Aziraphale isn't sure, and there's still the very real possibility that Crowley would shun him, that he has read everything wrong.

“Neither are you,” he breathes, but it sounds a lot like an accusation. 

Crowley’s brow pinches, ever so slightly, as if pained. There's something odd flickering in his eyes, a longing, a question, glinting in the wee light of the morning. And then it’s gone.

“Right,” Crowley clears his throat and pulls back a few inches, the moment shattered. “The doxology. We, er, we missed it.”

It's better this way. No matter that Aziraphale feels as if he's been robbed of all the heat of his body and left stunned, shivering, and cold. 

Candlelight smothered, leaving him alone in the darkness.

“Ah," he says. "You’re right. Please continue.”

Crowley nods, retrieving his hand, and drones, “ Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and always, and unto the ages of ages.”

There's nothing else Aziraphale can do. 

“ _ Amen _ .”

* * *

Crowley watches the last people leave the church after the evening Mass. Aziraphale is nowhere to be seen. He's probably back at the vicarage preparing himself for their trip to the Dowlings'.

He makes his way to the sacristy and dismisses Adam with a wave. He divests himself of his alb and chasuble, hanging them neatly inside the wardrobe.

There's something to be said about the ordinary liturgical time, he thinks, gazing up at the green chasuble. Crowley has always felt it like a breath between dives, the steady time between Easter and Advent, a gentle roll of waves where things are slow and yawning. 

Not that this time around he would think of it like that. Not after meeting Aziraphale. Not when his life seems to have been kicked off its axis, and any minute now he's going to catch the momentum, crashing face first against reality. 

It feels too much like a bloody dream.

He traces a finger over the side of his vestment. Fitting, he thinks, the color green. Like hope, perhaps. Those same hopes he shouldn't have, the same hopes he struggles to trample down each night. 

He plucks his sunglasses from his breast pocket and slides them up his nose, taking a full close look at his hand, as if he were seeing it for the first time. 

God, he'd  _ touched _ Aziraphale. And it was wrong, it shouldn't have been like that. Offering the comfort of prayer to stupidly, selfishly, steal something he ought not to have. 

At least there's the excuse that he hadn't actively been looking for it.  _ Yeah, yeah, as if that makes it any better _ . He'd almost been knocked on his arse when Aziraphale had appeared at the threshold of the church. 

He'd never before looked so much like an angel than in that moment. Even in the obscure nave, he'd seemed to shine and rise above filth and sin, and Crowley had almost imagined a  _ 'Be not afraid' _ coming from him. 

The whispered 'Angel' had slipped from his mouth despite himself. 

Crowley had been helpless. 

He wishes he could've deafened himself to Aziraphale's breathing, to blind himself to how striking he looked in the grey light of dawn. Those blond curls, those gentle blue eyes, all of him so inconveniently, painfully beautiful. He wishes he could ignore the way his heart pounds when Aziraphale laughs in the morning and smiles softly at night when he reads to Crowley, books he would've never known otherwise. He wishes he could ignore how much Aziraphale actually  _ cares _ .

Because he's kind. 

His fingers tighten hard around a palmful of his trousers. 

_ Fuck _ . He shouldn't have. 

But it had been impossible, especially when his mind was still reeling after the dream he'd had. A dream that had tasted a lot like longing, showing him an Aziraphale that laughed and kissed him, an image that has bored a hole into Crowley, a hole he doesn't think he's going to be able to fill. 

It's as if he had found the one thing that has eluded him his whole life, as if suddenly all his jagged edges have been smoothed.

He'd been too weak to resist the possibility of having at least a mocking pretense of the idea, and even the memory makes his throat feel so tight he doesn't think he could speak, even if he had something to say.

Because… because…  _ Oh, fucking Christ _ . 

He'd almost  _ kissed  _ Aziraphale.

And the memory is enough to make him dizzy. Those soft lips, inches away from his, while Aziraphale looked at him with something akin to wonder twinkling in his eyes. As if asking a question Crowley didn't understand. 

What had he been thinking?

No, he hadn't been thinking. That's the point. 

And even now he has to thank whatever power is out there (maybe it’s still God, and maybe it isn't), for allowing him to pull back. 

Is it a sin to want to kiss an angel? It has to be, when the person is him. Him. Jarred and bitter and false.

Broken.

Finally, Crowley saunters out of the church, squinting at the dying sunlight that beats against his eyes, even with the sunglasses. 

He isn't stupid enough to be blind, though. It's been years since he began questioning how fit he really is to still be a priest. There have been moments when it has struck him with forceful clarity. 

This isn't for him anymore. It’s a convenient pantomime at best. 

Why has he continued with this farce? 

It's rather simple, actually. 

He's settled. It's easier to let life carry you, putting in absolutely no effort whatsoever. A carcass that hasn’t realized that it died a long time ago. 

But now… What's going to happen with  _ them _ ?

No. No. He's getting way ahead of himself. There isn't an  _ us, _ as far as he's concerned, because he can't drag Aziraphale into his own delusion. For Christ's sake, priest or not, he doesn't even know if Aziraphale is gay. 

He has his suspicions, though, and if that is the case…

_ No, fuck. Stop it _ . 

He would never push Aziraphale to abandon the priesthood, and even less he would force him to see Crowley as anything other than a friend, if he doesn't want to. 

There's something clawing at his insides, shredding its way to his heart. 

It doesn't matter. 

He'll be whatever Aziraphale wants him to be. 

* * *

The trip to the Dowlings’ is quiet.

Aziraphale hasn't looked at him once since he got into the Bentley. 

Had he realized what Crowley had wanted to do earlier and was hating him for it? The thought is enough to make his fingers dig hard in the steering wheel. 

"I hope it won't rain," Aziraphale says, peering through his window. "Although those clouds look menacing."

It isn't the most smooth transition, but Crowley will take anything. 

"That's why you brought that umbrella?" He signals with his head at Aziraphale's hands. "And it’s tartan. Is anything you own not tartan?"

Aziraphale wriggles in his seat, some stiffness easing out of the line of his shoulders. 

"I'll have you know, tartan is stylish."

"It's not."

"We've been over this a hundred times, dear."

Crowley's stomach lurches at the endearment, but he sinks a canine into his lip and pushes through. 

"That doesn't mean you're right."

"It doesn't mean I'm wrong."

"You're excruciatingly stubborn, you know that? I don't know how I put up with you, Angel."

Aziraphale chuckles. "Oh my, what would I say about you, then?"

"That I'm charming, and handsome, and the best person you've ever known."

Crowley's smiling, and he's waiting for one of Aziraphale's witty remarks, but what he isn't expecting is the declaration that follows.

"I've never thought otherwise," Aziraphale says, and the words seem to grate low in his throat. 

What is he supposed to do with that statement?

Speech is lost to Crowley, and he mumbles something beneath his breath, hoping Aziraphale doesn't turn to see the hot-red mess of his face in that moment.

Luckily it's only a fifteen minute ride. 

It's almost difficult to believe the day is already closing, night sliding over them, when just this morning…

The memories flicker before his eyes, and Crowley has to catch himself before he drives over a patch of perfectly crimson roses.

_ Get it fucking together _ . 

The Bentley screeches to a halt, crunching on the gravel of the Dowling property. The Manor is one of those found featured in every single English period piece, to make foreigners believe the Regency had been the greatest of times. It has enough space to house an army. 

Crowley climbs out of the car and hurries to open the passenger door over a small 'Oh' coming from within. 

Aziraphale's eyes are wide and trained on his face when he steps out at his side. For a moment it looks like he's going to say something. His lips -  _ pink, so, so soft - _ part slightly before Crowley sees him take a hard swallow and clamp his mouth shut. 

"Thank you," he says.

He smiles. Something small and sad that yanks at Crowley's heart.

"Yeah. Ngh. Don't mention it."

They walk together to the door, to where a butler is waiting for them. 

He only hopes the night ends soon. 

* * *

It's almost worse than Aziraphale had expected.

_ Everyone _ is here.

The mayor, some journalists from the Tadfield Gazette (he recognizes the young man, Eric), some ladies he knows from the church, and of course, Gabriel. 

Aziraphale feels small, a speck of dirt amidst gleaming white, altogether more easily spotted for it. He knows it’s unwarranted, a spike of fear linked to the knowledge he’s presenting an image that isn’t entirely true, but no one here knows. Not even Gabriel. 

He wonders for a second if he could possibly just scurry back outside and escape all this. His breathing comes fast, and his chest heaves under the exertion of drawing even one ordinary breath. 

He starts to take a step back, when he feels the gentle pressure of a hand on the small of his back. 

"It's alright," he hears. It's Crowley leaning towards him and breathing words hot against his ear. "We're in this together."

Aziraphale's blood tingles in his arms, his legs, running wildly across his body and up his cheeks. 

" _ Crowley _ ."

It comes out of his mouth heartfelt, like saying  _ Grace _ , and he supposes, in a way, he is. Letting his thoughts chant how thankful he is for having this impossible, kind, wonderful man at his side. Thankful that he's walking beside him, next to him during breakfast, at his table during lunch, and in his heart at all times, preserved like a photograph in a locket. 

_ In me.  _

_ Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me. _

"Here." Crowley tentatively grazes his hand with his own. "Take my hand."

Aziraphale does so without losing a heartbeat. His fingers lace tightly with Crowley's, a slide of skin against skin that weighs heavily on his stomach and stirs the embers that haven’t been banked since that prayer at dawn. Aziraphale knows he's safe now, no matter the tempest. It's as if he's being pulled from a blizzard to take a seat in front of a hearth. Like a pilgrim finding a home.

Aziraphale  _ loves _ him. 

_ He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken _ . 

And he grits his teeth because, for a moment, he's in real danger of saying everything out loud. Blasphemous as it sounds, it's also very real. What better words to speak about love than the ones in the Bible, after all? He can hardly be blamed. 

"That's better, isn't it?" Crowley asks, softly, securing his hand in the crook of his elbow. "Come on, Angel. Let's make our way to the table before those bastards take the good seats."

He's so close Aziraphale can count the freckles on his cheeks and over the sharp line of his nose. Aziraphale looks at him for a moment, and it's as if the Earth has decided to stop moving, as if all the living creatures have held their breaths. 

He can do nothing but nod. 

A thunder clap booms in the distance. 

* * *

The dining room is as lavish and extravagant as Aziraphale had been expecting, but at least the food is quite good. They're already halfway through the second course, and Aziraphale is already thinking it’s entirely possible this isn’t going to be as awful as he had foretold. 

He hears a deluge pattering against the outside windows, and he flashes a knowing smile at Crowley who's sitting at his side. 

"So, how do you find the town, Ambassador?" Gabriel asks then.

Aziraphale feels somewhat lucky that his brother had been absorbed by the presence of the politicians, amongst whom he seems to thrive.

"It's not bad," Thaddeus says. "If maybe just a bit slow compared to my previous assignment. Although Harriet likes it, don't you, Harriet?"

"Oh, yes. You can easily know everyone in a week." She dabs her mouth with a napkin. "Well, not  _ everyone _ , now that I think about it. There's some people I've seen around who have never set foot in the church."

“There are always black sheep in every town,” Gabriel quips. 

Aziraphale is too used to this path of conversation to feel shaken. He picks up a piece of venison and carries it to his mouth, trying to block the barrage of unpleasant assumptions he knows are coming.

“There’s a woman I’ve caught snooping around the property,” Harriet says. “She seems to have a little store in town. It looks absolutely medieval.”

“Ah, that’s Agnes,” Gabriel says. “She’s an odd duck, but as long as she keeps her witchcraft and evil ways away from our parishioners, we can count ourselves blessed.”

“You’re friends with her, Father, aren’t you?” 

As invested as he is in chewing a mouthful of carrots and peas, Aziraphale doesn’t realize at first that Harriet is talking to him.

He dabs his mouth with a napkin. “Pardon?”

“I said, you’re friends with her, with Agnes.”

It isn’t as if Gabriel doesn’t know, but Aziraphale doesn’t want him to have a logbook of his life. 

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. 

“Well, yes.” Aziraphale sets his jaw and cuts another piece of his venison. He feels warmth rising up the back of his neck. “We’ve met occasionally for a long time now. She’s very charming and–”

“She doesn’t seem very Christian, does she?” Harriet interrupts. 

“Ah, well, no. She has her own beliefs, you see–”

“And isn’t that problem for you, being a priest and everything?” Harriet asks. 

“I don’t see why–”

“My brother has always been too soft with people who don’t deserve it,” Gabriel chimes in. He isn’t looking at him, but Aziraphale sees the shadow of a frown on his face. “Even to the point of getting him in trouble. I’d prefer he spend his time and efforts on people more deserving.”

It’s a veiled threat that rises loudly over the silence that has spread around the table. 

But then, “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Crowley says. Aziraphalle tilts his head to the side and sees him taking a sip of his wine, calm and collected behind his sunglasses. “Wasn’t it Jesus who said to do good things precisely for those who need them the most? Love thy neighbor and all that? I think Father Fell here is doing a fantastic job of it. Teaching us all a lesson or two, don't you think, Your Grace?” 

“Father Crowley,” Gabriel starts. 

“And wasn’t Jesus himself an outcast?” Crowley presses. 

“Much as I’d like to share your views, Father,” Gabriel says, with a hint of steel in his voice, “this isn’t the same world as two thousand years ago. People do all sorts of evil things now.”

“And yet we try to abide by the same rules written in that time. Isn’t that a contradiction, then?”

There’s a loaded couple of seconds, when Aziraphale feels as if the room is flooding with thick oil, spreading around them. Gabriel’s eyes spark, and the tight line of his mouth seems to hold the tension of his entire face. And then he laughs, a cold, brash thing.

"Ah, Father Crowley. I've heard you were quite outspoken," Gabriel says. "But sometimes it's better to listen before we speak about things we don't understand."

Aziraphale sees the whole line of Crowley's body arch as if readying himself to pounce, and he quickly slides his hand under the table and over Crowley's knee, grasping it firmly.

Crowley gasps, and whatever retort was going to sprout from that clever, beautiful mouth dies in the onomatopoeic sounds Aziraphale knows so well. 

Conversation resumes after that, decanting to more mundane topics, and just when Aziraphale is about to retrieve his hand from its blessed spot over Crowley's knee, Crowley finds it, weaving their fingers together one more time. 

Aziraphale is terrified to touch him. He's terrified to let him go. He's a lovesick gaggle of limbs and a heart that's beating faster than is probably prudent. 

Especially for a heart that has been silent, calcified, for so long. 

* * *

When dinner ends, and the port is served, and Gabriel can't find more stories to shove onto Thaddeus' face before asking for a donation for the church, it's close to midnight and Aziraphale is practically asleep on his feet.

Everyone has retreated from the table but the news isn't good. 

"What do you mean we can't go  _ home _ ?" Crowley yelps. 

Aziraphale listens silently, standing at his side. 

The storm has worsened, showing its uglier side, as if trying to drown all the iniquity of the world in one night. 

The roads are now rivers, and even though it's only a fifteen minute drive, it would be quite reckless to venture out in the downpour. 

"I'm sorry, Father," Harriet says. "We've given instructions to park your car inside our garage until the rain stops."

"Well, yeah. Fine." Aziraphale sees Crowley pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's– Thank you."

"We don't know how much it's going to rain, obviously, and given that it's a bit late, we're offering the guest rooms in case anyone needs to rest. Everyone has taken us up on the offer."

"Oh, that's very sensible, dear," Aziraphale says. It's been a long day, and after the long sleepless night, the idea of lying down on a bed sounds wonderful.

"It's the least we can do," Harriet says, smiling. "The only thing is, we do have a limited humber of rooms and I was wondering, given that you two live together, if you wouldn't mind much sharing one for the time you're trapped here?"

There's a beat, the long span of a second when Aziraphale's stomach squeezes, tied in preposterous, ridiculous knots. 

_ It doesn't mean anything. Nothing is going to happen. We live together, for God's sake.  _

"That's absolutely tickety-boo, my dear," he says before Crowley can even open his mouth. 

"Oh, marvellous," Harriet claps their hands together. "Let me show you the way, then."

Aziraphale trails after her, determined to not look at the magnet behind him. It's a bit difficult, and he catches sight of Crowley moving in the periphery of his vision, following them. 

They reach a door on the second floor, while Harriet drones about the history of the house she had learned from a book at the local library. 

"This is it," she says, and swings the door open. "Please, make yourselves comfortable, and if you need anything just let us know by pressing that button over there. Someone will come to help you."

"Thank you." Aziraphale's voice is small, swallowed by the carpet and the thick drapery of the hallway. 

Harriet doesn't seem to notice anything wrong and leaves with a cheerful wave.

"After you." He signals Crowley towards the open door and watches him hesitate before stepping inside. 

Aziraphale can't repress a shiver when he enters the room. It's significantly warmer than the rest of the house and, with the rain, he feels it much more starkly.

"It's… nice," Crowley says. "Go on. You can take the bed, I'll take the sofa. You're practically asleep there on your feet."

"You don't have to," he blurts out. Halfway into the sentence he realizes he could catch himself before he drowns, but it would be a lie not to say what he thinks. "The bed is quite big for the both of us."

He's quite awake. Awake enough to not pretend his offer is one made in a sleepless daze and starlight. 

Crowley has taken his sunglasses off, and his eyes show something open and vulnerable. Almost fragile.

" _ Angel _ ," he pleads, broken, as if Aziraphale is wounding him.

Aziraphale sits on the edge of the bed and draws in a sigh. Tired and soft and pervasive. 

"Please," Aziraphale says, and it cracks. " _ Please _ ."

He stares at Crowley's feet, as if the entire fate of the world is bound to the steps that they may or may not take. 

There's a flood outside, and there's one as well inside Aziraphale's veins, and he feels as if he could easily pluck his heart out and crush it under his shoe because the look in Crowley's face is unwavering. 

Aziraphale waits, frets. 

And then Crowley moves forward. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel so very blessed, the sweet [Phantomstardemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantomstardemon/pseuds/Phantomstardemon) felt moved enough by the rosary scene to commission the incredibly talented [Lei-Sam](https://lei-sam.tumblr.com/) to draw it, and you can see it here:  
> [Prayer Scene](https://lei-sam.tumblr.com/post/639344411950678016/fervent-prayer)
> 
> Hmu on [Tumblr](https://naromoreau.tumblr.com/) <3  
> Or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xenoscientist/)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh thank you all so much for being so patient with me. The next chapters won't take long. Just a heads up, this chapter has some sexual content and it's the angsty one. 
> 
> \---
> 
> As always my love to [Hatknitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HatKnitter) for being my very supportive beta. 
> 
> This chapter fought me a bit so, all my love to my amazing cheering squad [caedmon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caedmon/pseuds/Caedmon), [hanap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanap/pseuds/hanap) and [jenanigans1207](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenanigans1207/pseuds/Jenanigans1207) who suffered me yeeting snippets at them for a whole evening. Love you all, babies!! ❤️
> 
> \-----
> 
> The absolutely wonderful [Gingerlizzard](https://mobile.twitter.com/gingerlizzard) drew art for this chapter that I embedded in the middle and it's GORGEOUS!! 😭😭❤️❤️. THANK YOU SO MUCH LIZZ. It's NSFW.

_Listen to me as one listens to the rain,_  
_not attentive, not distracted,_  
_light footsteps, thin drizzle,_  
_water that is air, air that is time,_  
_the day is still leaving,_  
_the night has yet to arrive,_  
_figurations of mist_  
_at the turn of the corner,_  
_figurations of time_  
_at the bend in this pause,_  
_listen to me as one listens to the rain,_  
_without listening, hear what I say_  
_with eyes open inward, asleep_  
_with all five senses awake,_  
_it's raining, light footsteps, a murmur of syllables,_  
_air and water, words with no weight:_  
_what we are and are,_  
_the days and years, this moment,_  
_weightless time and heavy sorrow,_  
_listen to me as one listens to the rain._  
(Octavio Paz)

* * *

Crowley can feel the stale air as it clings to his nostrils, drifts down his throat. Air safeguarded under the rug, between the bed and the white eiderdown, circling and twining them both. His stomach twists as if someone had dug a hand in it and turned it inside out, all his thoughts ensnared by the realization that this isn’t a fucked up delusion. 

The room seems to close in on Crowley, with its heavy drapes and the mahogany doors of the closet at one side. Silence and rain. Silence that amplifies the beating of his own heart _pulsing_ wildly around that cord that _pulls_ and pulls him toward Aziraphale. A whoosh of breath, like a soft breeze by the sea. The corner of the wallpaper, slightly tattered. It’s as if every little detail was carving its way under his skin, building an image which he knows will be impossible to erase in years to come. Is the clock still ticking? Who knows. 

It isn’t wise to take that step. He knows it isn’t. Sod _wise_ , it’s _dangerous_ , but that doesn’t stop him. He lifts one foot from the floor, and it’s as if his joints were fused by lead, dragging him down. Sucking him down to Hell. 

_Brimstone and Hellfire._

This is madness. 

He needs to _stop_ , back down, but one look at Aziraphale’s face is enough to weather down his resistance. One spared look into those eyes, beautiful and fragile, open and vulnerable, gazing at him imploringly as he takes his tumbling steps toward the bed, his legs as useless as those of a newborn foal. 

There’s the trembling spasm of a shiver working its way down Crowley’s spine, just like the storm outside works its way down the countryside. Wrecking. Stirring things that ought to be dormant. A downpour cleansing the land, sweeping over dirt, and mud, and… and lies as well, sod it all. 

His skin prickles, the black cloth searing the dermis, and every breath hurts, pierces his chest as Saint Francis’ stigma on his side. 

On the bed Aziraphale is waiting. 

It seems unreal. How many nights he’s dreamt of this? How many nights he’s whiled away the hours chasing the memory of warmth in his fingers, a lavender scent burning his nose, hot lips on Crowley’s own? How many nights he’s lulled himself to sleep tracing the memories of Aziraphale’s face, sliding his hands along his arms, digging fingers in his hair? 

Nights spent aching and hot and hard under the sheets. 

Crowley swallows his doubts, the churning anguish brewing in his gut because there’s no time to ponder. His knees are already bumping the mattress, and right now his life has narrowed down, become a tunnel vision, and there, sitting flushed and beautiful, rests its focus. 

“ _Please_ , Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and it isn’t fair, the way his voice stirs that spot inside Crowley, that spot that’s always dimmed by darkness. Cauterized to hope. 

Crowley sits on the bed, sags against the firm resistance of the mattress that gives under the weight of his doubts, of his want, of the million and one thing that tell him he should run out through the door and not look back. 

There’s barely two feet between them, but the space feels insurmountable. 

“Aren’t you tired?” Aziraphale asks, his voice a small thing, like a pebble in an ocean. 

“Not really.”

Crowley’s knackered, but his limbs seem suffused with a fire that rolls like a living thing, and he thinks he won’t be able to sleep tonight either. 

Aziraphale clears his throat. “At least you could lie down for a bit. You woke up terribly early today.”

 _Oh, fuck_ . Yeah. Aziraphale remembers, because of course he does. He _always_ remembers, and that’s exactly the problem. Because he notices, and sees Crowley in a way that speaks of devotion to the details, and it’s rather tempting to let himself fall and try to blow this out of proportion. 

“What about you?” Crowley offers back, and isn’t it a miracle his voice isn’t shaking? “It isn’t like you slept much yesterday either.”

Aziraphale flushes pink, and his eyes swivel down to the floor. “Yes, well.” He places a hand over the one Crowley has on the bed and it’s enough to feel his own fingers itching to grab him, to curl around that firm wrist and never let go. “We both could do with a bit of rest. Perhaps… perhaps it would help you to talk about what’s troubling you. I can see it in your face.”

 _Nails of the fucking cross._

“Nah,” Crowley says, slithering his hand away to toy with the button on his wrist. “It’s just… Yeah. I guess I’m tired, that’s all.”

Aziraphale’s hand curls on his, and it speaks of his own nervousness, and perhaps… perhaps he _knows_ , and is offering Crowley the opportunity to confess, to save that wretched piece of him still worth saving. 

Crowley’s blood beats in his temples, on the roof of his palate, and he turns to kick his shoes off just to have something to do. 

There’s no way out of this. 

_Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground._

He hears the stark sound of Aziraphale’s shoes being discarded at the other side of the bed, loud, _loud_ , so very loud in the silence that hovers above his skin, and he cranes his neck just to see Aziraphale removing his collar. It takes the breath out of him. Somehow it feels like it’s tackling a barrier, and very much despite himself Crowley does the same. 

His neck is now bare. 

Aziraphale shifts, extends his legs and rearranges himself until he’s lying on his side. Facing him. 

There’s nothing else to do, not much else to cling to to save himself. To save them both. 

Crowley lies on the bed, facing the ceiling, very aware of the scant space between them. Of the warmth buffeting his whole body, warmth that rolls over him and makes every inch of skin tingle, want needling in his blood, urging him to take Aziraphale in his arms. 

He _needs_ to touch him. 

Whatever had once led him to seek something greater in the cloth was long gone, and now his skin, his flesh, is weathered, dry and parched from a drought. It’d be so easy, so bloody easy, to turn and run a hand along Aziraphale’s side, over his face. 

To reach across the space between them and finally have him. 

“Would you turn, please?” Aziraphale asks. 

Crowley will never know how to say no to him. 

“Yeah. ‘Course.”

His tongue is thick in his mouth, sticking to his teeth, and his heart thunders in his chest like the storm outside. He forces himself to glance up at Aziraphale, through the haze of their closeness, through the scorching weight of the walls crashing on him from all sides.

Aziraphale’s eyes sparkle under the soft light of the lamp at the nightstand. “I want to thank you for what you did down there.”

Crowley blinks. “What?”

“What you said,” Aziraphale blurts out, looking down, his pale lashes brushing the curve of a soft cheek, abashed. Crowley's heart burns like the core of a bonfire, like a stake set ready for his heresy. “To Gabriel. I– I know I should’ve been more firm, more–”

“Angel, stop.” Crowley’s nails cut into his palms, because touching Aziraphale right now would be the beginning of the end, an Apocalypse of its own. But he needs to cup that cheek, to ease the lines marring that face. “None of that was your fault. And yeah, I don’t care if he's the Archbishop. I won’t let him do that to you if I can help it, especially when all you’re trying to do is to just be a damn good person. You're doing a better job than any of us could."

Aziraphale smiles, sad and quiet. “Still. You shouldn't have opened yourself to a reprimand for me.”

"I'd risk far more than that for you," he says fiercely, his tongue rolling the words out of its own accord. 

Aziraphale swallows, and it's painfully clear in the v the collar left open. His shoulders tense, and then drop. " _Crowley…_ "

“No, I mean it. What I said, earlier…” Crowley smacks his lips, takes a breath as before a dive. There's no use in saving this for himself, because somehow he knows Aziraphale _needs_ to hear it. Because _he_ needs to say it. “We’re in this together. It’s you and me, Angel, and for what it’s worth, for whatever it's worth… you have me.” The words grate in his throat, dragging across the longing, blazing hot inside him. 

"Do I?" Aziraphale asks with just a thread of voice. He looks at Crowley, and his eyes flash blue.

For a moment the question doesn't register in Crowley's brain, but then he's flooded with terror, because it’s as if suddenly Aziraphale could see, directly, every doubt, every flaw and shortcoming, as if he was cracking the kernel inside Crowley and pulling out its contents to dry them in the light of the sun. It's as if everything he's holding inside is being floated up to the surface, very much despite himself.

The Red Sea being split in two. 

Aziraphale trembles, and reaches a soft, pale hand, and places it flat on Crowley's chest. Fucking Christ on the cross, he isn't ready for this. A wreck of hot, shimmering need rushes across Crowley's spine because Aziraphale's face is pinched in a grimace and Crowley would do anything, _anything_ to remedy that. 

His breath rushes sharply through his clenched teeth and in the split of a searing second he reaches and takes Aziraphale's hand in his. 

It is impossible to deny he wants this, it's impossible to deny how madly, how brutally in love he is, not with his heart beating a mile a minute under Aziraphale's touch, with his own palm hot and sweating over Aziraphale's skin. 

It's too much. 

"Tell me," Aziraphale says then, a thin, broken sound. "Why were you at the church this morning?"

Crowley doesn't know if he’ll be able to answer, because there's no air in his lungs. He forges through, nonetheless. "Told you. Praying. Couldn't sleep." 

"Yes, but…" Aziraphale presses his lips together, and inhales. "What was your bad dream about?"

He can lie. Crowley has no qualms about lying for small things. Except this isn't a small thing, but rather a fucking gigantic, monumental thing that, as of now, has every other thing inside him crammed to the minimal. 

He _should_ lie. What's a lie in the ocean of sins he's already committed? 

But the wicked hopes thrash in his chest. 

And his answer is there. The words sizzle out, and he can't help the truth from spilling forth,

"Wasn't a nightmare. I dreamed of you."

Aziraphale opens his eyes wide, wide and painfully beautiful, and before Crowley can _think_ , can realize what he's doing, he's speaking again.

"I dreamed about kissing you," he whispers, words almost drowned under the rain drops pelting down against the windows. Aziraphale’s lips part, pink and damp, and close, closer than is sensible for Crowley’s wretched heart. _Christ, forgive me_. “Wasn’t the first time.”

It's an odd thing, but it feels good to say it. A confession without penance, a debriding of lies. 

Aziraphale’s hand clenches around Crowley’s shirt in a forceful tug. “ _Crowley_ …” and it’s as if he was begging. Pleading Crowley to spare him.

Because Crowley’s being fucking selfish, and his atonement has already tainted the Angel. 

His heart rages and thrashes in his throat and he blinks back the tears in his eyes. “Angel, I’m sorry. You don’t have to–” 

A lightning strike outside, and Aziraphale is kissing him.

Pressing damp, soft lips that fall open sweetly against Crowley’s mouth. It's a hurried, deep, all-consuming thing that sears his skin, a firebrand glowing red. Crowley’s trembling, he realizes, while Aziraphale drags his tongue hot against the seam of his mouth. He’s tasting him, prying Crowley open one push at a time, his hands seizing Crowley’s waist, the side of his face.

"Angel," Crowley breathes, "what– are you–"

"Oh Lord, Crowley." Aziraphale slots the words into his mouth, between kisses. "I've– I just–" And then, "Should I stop?"

"Not at all," Crowley almost growls, pulling him closer by fistfuls of his shirt. 

It’s desperate, like a hand rising from below the waters clinging to a lifeboat, and the world falls silent, fading at the edges, and it’s just them, wanting, and pulsing and taking, taking, _taking_. 

_Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth_.

Aziraphale isn’t an Angel aloft, but a body, warm and soft and beloved. Just a man Crowley has been wanting, _loving_ , for months. His arms seem to understand, all of him seems to grasp the knowledge that it’s finally happening, that they're _fucking kissing_ , and he circles Aziraphale, embraces him tightly, touching and _touching_ , the round curve of his stomach, the strong line of his shoulders. His skin feels alight, prickling all over, and he can't help the moan that spills, that bounces off the walls in the silence. Crowley’s tongue slides inside Aziraphale’s mouth, searching and slipping wet and hot and frankly clumsy over his lips, their breaths scalding. He can feel Aziraphale's teeth, perfect against his tongue, can feel Aziraphale tilting his head to chase after him. Aziraphale melts, falls against Crowley, pressing every bit of himself against the taut line of Crowley’s body. And then he’s _moaning_. He’s moaning into Crowley’s mouth, and the sound rumbles on Crowley’s palate and deep inside him. 

Fuck, he's hard. 

Everything feels hot, and Crowley's hands roam, gripping Aziraphale tighter by the waist, by those round and beautiful hips. 

It’s been too long since he has kissed anyone. Long and enough. 

“ _Angel_ ,” he whines in a moment of reprieve when Aziraphale drags his mouth down Crowley’s jaw, to his neck, sucking his skin like a starving man. 

“Oh, oh, _Crowley_.”

His words vibrate against Crowley’s vocal cords, and for a moment it’s as if both were talking with just one tongue, an understanding, deep, bridging the Babel of everyday life. 

Crowley forgets about the promise he made long ago, and breathes Aziraphale's name with a mouth that was supposed to praise the Lord and no one else. He’s way past caring now, sighing, and clutching at Aziraphale, unable to remember the last time he felt so full. 

And he should feel like drowning, sinking down in the sea because, like Peter, he has tossed away his trust in God, no longer able to walk on the waves, and yet… 

And yet he feels himself soar.

Aziraphale kisses the same way he lives. Earnest and dedicated and passionate, setting Crowley adrift, unmoored, with each touch, easing the strain of the final days out of his bones. He maps Crowley's body with reverence, dipping his fingers into the dips of his ribs, splaying a palm over the swell of a thigh. Crowley breathes him in deeply. There’s nothing between them but the borrowed air of each other’s lungs, and Crowley inhales his fill of the sharp, sweet smell of him. 

Aziraphale’s hands flex, curling around his hip, tightening in his hair. The same hands he’s seen raise the chalice, turn Bible pages, signaling the cross high in the air at the end of Mass. It’s frightening how easy it is to fall into this, to let himself be swallowed by the tide. Crowley can’t stop kissing him, while Aziraphale struggles to draw in his next breath amidst whimpers, and it can’t be helped. Crowley rolls on top of him, pressing him flat against the mattress. His knees open wide at the side of Aziraphale's hips, his arse pressed tight against Aziraphale's cock.

 _Fucking Christ, he wants him._

Crowley stops, unsure, because Aziraphale has gone somewhat still beneath him. And suddenly there's panic cloying his veins, curdling in his stomach. _He's forced this_. He's taken unfair advantage, and the thought makes him sick.

He tries to scramble away, but apparently that’s enough to prompt Aziraphale to move, because he’s pulling Crowley down, hunger written all over his face.

"Angel, we… you don't have to," Crowley offers, around a wet, open-mouthed kiss. 

Aziraphale smiles, brings Crowley's forehead against his. "I… I know, dear. I _want_ to."

"Oh, _fuck_."

There’s a sudden rush of arousal when Aziraphale rolls his hips, rubbing his erection against Crowley’s hard cock, groaning and digging his teeth into Crowley’s lower lip. 

"Kiss me," Crowley begs. "Kiss me, hard, more."

Aziraphale groans, deep and rough. "Yes, beautiful."

Everything is too much and not enough all at once, and Aziraphale looks breathtakingly gorgeous beneath him, panting and sobbing his moans to the air. 

Crowley arches against him with a hoarse groan, his hands sliding all over Aziraphale's sides, over his chest, catching at the metal of his crucifix. 

"Dear," Aziraphale whispers, falling apart at the seams. " _Dearest_."

Oh, this is Heaven, or perhaps Hell because there's a snarled-up barrier still between them. 

Crowley closes his eyes and buries his face in the crook of Aziraphale's neck. There's no need to think about it now.

"Is this alright?" Aziraphale asks, ragged all over, twining his fingers deep in Crowley's hair, bucking his hips up, "Is this…?"

"Fuck. _This_ ," Crowley gasps, mouthing at Aziraphale's jaw, licking down his neck, grinding down, pressing, _pressing,_ "I dreamed of this. Of you. I'd do anything for you _. Ah_." 

His hips kick forward all on their own, and Aziraphale grabs his waist, as if guiding his movements while they rut mindlessly against each other. Insistent and demanding where they're both aching and hot and hard.

Crowley knows their pants must be a terribly wet mess of precome.

Aziraphale sucks on his pulse spot, his wonderful, powerful thighs pinning him in place as he thrusts up, his hands rubbing along his back, grabbing a palmful of Crowley's arse. 

"Oh, fuck," Crowley moans, or perhaps grunts, he isn't sure anymore, " _oh fuck, Angel, please_."

"My darling, beautiful boy." Aziraphale finds his mouth again, while Crowley feels that heavy, heady feeling unraveling at the base of his spine, weighing heavy in his pelvis. "You're exquisite."

He's too close.

Crowley tosses his head back, and rolls his hips insistently, because it feels like not enough. He needs Aziraphale's hands, and mouth, and cock in him, all at once, to never let go. 

"Christ spare me," Crowley growls into Aziraphale's mouth. "You gorgeous, perfect thing." 

They're rocking together, artlessly and messy, as if they'd never touched anyone before, and in a way that's true. 

This is entirely another life.

It's raw need, desperate; it makes Crowley's nails curl on Aziraphale's skin, all his nerves finally awoken from slumber. 

Crowley scrapes his teeth along Aziraphale's jaw, and just then Aziraphale bites down _hard_ on his shoulder.

That does it.

Crowley comes with a moan, crying out and jerking his hips unevenly in a swirl of sensation that socks him so deep he stops breathing. Aziraphale is pressed tightly against him and there, just when Crowley's starting to bask in his bliss, Aziraphale shakes apart in his arms and comes with a low groan. 

Crowley forces his eyes open, needing to commit this to memory, and he sees Aziraphale’s lips parted in rapture, brows furrowed, much like a saint in the divine ecstasy of the heart loving Christ Crucified surrounded by incense. 

Because this is also sacred. 

And he should feel guilt, he should feel damned and cast out, but his blood beats madly and, in stark contradiction, he finds he's at peace. 

Crowley rolls onto his side, trying to steady his breathing, searching for Aziraphale's hand. He isn't ready to let go. 

They need to talk. To speak. They need to sort this out before the weight falls like the slab of The Sepulchre of Christ smothering them both. 

Aziraphale is panting, all of him a disheveled vision, and Crowley's eyes are riveted to his face, to his mouth, waiting for something… anything. 

"Aziraphale," he finally whispers. _Begs_. "What–"

And Aziraphale turns on his side. There's the flit of a doubt flickering across his face. 

"Crowley. Could we– Tomorrow. Let's do this tomorrow." He closes his eyes and takes in a breath. "Later. Tomorrow will be better."

"But–"

Aziraphale cups his cheek and closes his eyes. "Please, Crowley. I- Not right now," and he seems to wither as he speaks. "In the morning. Please."

"It's alright, Angel," he says over the dread bubbling inside him, over the terrifying realization that this may not go as he's expecting. "Pay no mind."

Crowley closes his eyes and feels his heart pounding in his mouth, ready to fall over, a pathetic thing with no dignity.

Each breath seems like a challenge, a risk, and he isn't ready to let go. It isn't only a body hot against him, it's meals and dinners, and lazy evenings in front of the telly. It's nights and days, and bickering and mad laughter. It's Crowley reading to Aziraphale aloud and Aziraphale selecting gardening tips for Crowley.

It's belonging, as he hasn't never before. 

But he can't force this.

He turns on his side, facing away, and feels the track of a tear slipping down his cheek. Frustration burns inside him and he feels as if he's been cleaved. 

He can't do this, he can't force this thing out in the open, coax Aziraphale, if he isn't ready. If he isn't _willing_.

What exactly has happened here? 

He draws in a shuddery breath and fixes his gaze on the dancing shadows of the far-away wall, all of him feeling wrecked and filthy. 

He feels like curling in on himself, when an arm laces around his waist, pulling his back flush to a gentle chest. 

"I'm sorry," Aziraphale whispers in the nape of his neck. Hot, ardent words that tug at Crowley's heart. "I–"

"S alright," Crowley hears himself saying. "Don't be sorry. Never be sorry." The beat of his thundering heart. " _I love you_."

There's a sound coming from behind him, a sob, a gasp, and then silence. 

The arm grips him tighter, and Crowley's grief falls on him like the shroud of the grave. 

Slowly, night beats down his wakefulness, and he finally falls into a sleep without dreams, pressed close to Aziraphale's heart. 

* * *

Aziraphale knows he isn't moving. He isn't doing much of anything right now, sitting there in his armchair. Crowley is taking care of the Mass. _I'll do it_ , he'd said without glancing at Aziraphale. 

In front of him, his Earl Grey is already cold. 

He can hear the chirp of the birds in the trees outside, can see the greenery, lush from the deluge of the day before, while the sunlight spills through the windows of his office, breeze pushing in with a lazy stretch.

Somehow the Earth had kept spinning, even when the axis of his world had shattered into splinters. 

Lord, he had _kissed_ Crowley. He'd _lain_ with him, and the fact is cutting a chasm filled with tar deep inside him, making him drown, a sunken ship with insufficient ballast. 

He's been trying desperately to drive away the memories of last night. Trying to discourage the sprouts of hope from taking root in his soul, because this isn't for them to have. 

It's the path of Golgotha, martyrdom and splattered blood paving the road that they should have. 

_Crowley_ , he thinks, remembering the hot, wet breath of him, his garnet-bright hair, hazel eyes flickering over him with desire. 

He presses a finger over his lips, where the pressure of Crowley's mouth had driven him to madness. Where his taste and his warmth had finally pushed him to imagine a life where this could be possible. He can feel his lips still pulsing, his body aflame, and he closes his hand around the crucifix on his chest.

It doesn't bring him peace. 

Aziraphale had been seeking this. He knows he was. He can repeat to himself he hadn't been expecting things to turn the way they did, he can repeat to himself the lies that had tucked himself to sleep every night. 

But some part of him had known that this thing, these vines growing and trapping them both, were best not disturbed. A part of him had known that, if Crowley hadn’t spoken when Aziraphale had probed him to bare his soul, he probably would have. He would have told him _everything_. 

And yet. 

Aziraphale takes a deep breath, begging his heart to slow down, but it seems like an impossible task. It's as if it had been a timepiece set in motion, counting the hours since he started finally living. 

Because Crowley had told him he _loved_ him, he remembers dizzily. He'd told him what Aziraphale had been craving to hear, and he had said _nothing_ in return. Words had fled in a rush of fear of facing reality. 

The thing is that he’d grown accustomed to treading in a world of ideas, in a world where his actions didn’t really have an impact. Not in his own life, at least. Not once he had ever had to _choose_ , not in something that mattered. A peerless man, with nothing to regret. A broken man, with nothing to call his own. 

Aziraphale squeezes his eyes shut, a leaden feeling settling low in his stomach. 

And there’s also the fact that he had broken his vows.

 _Excuses_ , his heart screams. 

He’s afraid that much is true. Afraid of what lies beyond the gates of the black cloth, of the free will he has never enforced. 

Two meager months had been enough to show him his _house_ wasn’t built on the rocks, but on quicksand, too easily moved by the tides. 

No, not easy, he thinks. Crowley had made it so. 

It had been him, only for him.

There’s a knock on his door. He has hidden long enough.

“Come in,” he calls, expecting to see Tracy.

The door swings on its hinges, and Crowley stands at the threshold. _Tomorrow_ , Aziraphale had said, and the hours have caught up to him. 

As if on cue, Aziraphale’s heart, not terribly quiet before, goes into a riot. 

“Crowley,” he says. It’s odd, the way he says it. As if he had never pronounced his name before, the syllables catching in his teeth, on his tongue, in the barbs around his heart. 

“Hey,” Crowley greets. They hadn’t seen each other since the very silent ride back from the Dowlings, when they had each seemed to coil away from the other. Crowley signals the inside of the room. “May I?”

Aziraphale’s breath catches a little in his chest. “Of course.”

He watches Crowley close the door and step forward, his shoulders slightly hunched, as if bracing for something. As if he has been nerving himself up for this. Aziraphale feels sick to his stomach. 

“We need to talk,” Crowley finally says, and takes his sunglasses off. 

His eyes are red-rimmed, almost glazed over. Aziraphale realizes he just performed Mass, baring his eyes for everyone to see, flaying himself raw to spare Aziraphale the ordeal. 

Aziraphale’s chest squeezes painfully. 

He nods, biting his bottom lip, his hands crossed behind his back. 

“How are you?” Crowley asks. 

“Fine. I’m fine.” 

There’s a swollen pause, when Aziraphale feels nausea rising up his throat. He so badly wants to touch Crowley, to kiss him once again, to secure him in his arms and allow them shared nights, together in bed. 

Aziraphale loves him so fiercely, it’s threatening to consume him.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley finally says, “listen...”

But it isn’t that simple. He looks at his desk, at his shelves, at the comfort of the rug beneath his feet. Aziraphale considers the uncertainty of not knowing how to chase after the promises their bodies made in starlight. 

“I can’t,” he blurts out, his voice coming out all wrong. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to do this.”

Crowley looks at him, stunned. “Right,” he says after a moment. “And this, being, what?”

“Come now, Crowley, you know perfectly well what I’m talking about," Aziraphale says, wringing his hands.

“Do I?" Crowley's already expressive brows leap to his hairline. "Must be a mind reader then, ‘cause you aren’t saying anything, Aziraphale. You haven’t said a word!"

Aziraphale wants to flee, but there's nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and what for? He's already exposed. “Don’t be obtuse," he manages, instead. 

“ _I_ am being obtuse?" Crowley recoils, and Aziraphale can see the pain setting in the angles of his face. "When the only thing I want is for you to say bloody something.”

“And what’s for me to say? What can I possibly say to change the fact we have– we have broken our vows?" Aziraphale asks, hoarse. _Excuses_ , his heart screams again, piled upon his cowardice, stomping it down. 

Crowley's face twists in a snarl. "Sod them, the vows! It's _you_ I care about, and if you give me just one word–"

"Stop. _Please_."

"Why did you let it happen?" Crowley asks and he looks miserable. "Why didn't you stop me?"

"Because…"

"Why, Aziraphale? Why didn't you say no?"

"I didn't want you to stop!"

"Then, what? You wanted a romp, that's it?" And it's vicious, the way he says it, almost filthy. "A one-time thing? No strings attached? That what you hoped for?"

"No! It isn't like that!"

"Then bloody explain it, because I don't understand!"

"It's just–" Aziraphale can't tell him. Not now, when he isn't ready to pursue this through. He feels small, pathetic and lost. The thief in the night, soiling the temple. "I thought I could, but I can't."

Crowley draws to a halt. There's a twitch in his jaw and then he starts laughing. A broken, terrifying thing, that dies down in a grimace. 

"I can't," Aziraphale says. _I want to, so badly, I do_ . "Don't make me choose." _Between you and the church,_ he doesn't say, but it comes out crystal clear all the same. 

Aziraphale doesn't realize he's crying until he tastes salt on his lips. 

"Hey, hey, Angel," Crowley says, taking a step forward. Hesitating. His previous defensiveness bleeds out in a second. "It's alright. Everything is fine. Forgive me, I didn't want to–"

Aziraphale sees the purple bloom of a crescent peaking over the line of Crowley's collar and it's as if he had been hit with a direct blow. _His_ mark, on Crowley's throat. He staggers forward and falls into Crowley's open arms. 

Those arms that have always been home. 

"I can't," Aziraphale repeats, the tears flooding his voice. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have."

"Aziraphale. _Angel_." Crowley pulls him away by the shoulders, only by a handbreadth, and cups his cheeks. "Listen. What I said yesterday…" He closes his eyes, draws in a breath and swallows thickly. "My love isn't conditional. It's not gonna change because of this. Or anything, actually."

"Crowley," Aziraphale says, insufficient. Words failing him when he needs them the most. 

"And I would never force you to make a decision," Crowley follows, and there's agony flitting across his face. He's Saint Sebastian and Aziraphale is the torturer. "So don't worry. All's fine. I just–"

But Aziraphale never gets to hear the end of the sentence because Crowley turns on his heels and leaves the room. 

Aziraphale hears the click of his loafers fading in the distance, muffled under the ringing of his pulse in his ears, unable to see through the well of his tears. 

* * *

Crowley reaches his room and slams the door shut, making it rattle. He leans back against the hardwood, and slides down to the floor in a defeated, sorrowful heap. 

There's a breeze coming from the outside, warm, pushing against his skin. He's falling apart, scattering away, like the ashes of a burnt up cigarette. 

Fuck, how he misses those. 

He can't keep doing this. 

Aziraphale's words, or the lack of them, have already sliced away his world. Crowley had been ready, had been eager, to hurl everything away for him. To stop lying to himself. 

To God. 

Though, not really. _Omniscient, and stuff,_ he thinks. They should already know. 

Crowley has no energy left to rise and sever his shackles. But he can't stay here. 

Aziraphale doesn't deserve to feel torn, and Crowley can't put the hinges of what he carries inside back in place and snap himself closed. 

It's time to let go – the reel has broken. 

He closes his eyes and plucks the events from last night back, threads the filaments of every sense-memory between his fingers, the vicious, red-ardent kisses, dimpled, plump hands on him, always on him. 

His heart is full, squeezed up into his too-narrow chest, his ribs crowding it to keep it from bursting. 

He slides through his memories, like a hand over glass, his fingers catching a little by the sweat of his pads, by a particularly heart-wrenching moment springing out. 

He presses his fingers to his eyes – damp, tired, haunted – and slips them down to press on his neck. On Aziraphale's final gift. 

Fuck, he needs to do this.

He can't stay. He can't keep letting his hopes cluster behind his pupils every time he looks at Aziraphale. 

What kind of life would that be?

He clambers back up and dashes out the door to Tracy's desk, looking for the phone and praying, _yes, praying_ , she isn't around. 

He feels sick, his stomach lurching as if he’s standing on a boat out on the sea. 

At least some prayers are answered, because the room is deserted. He takes the receiver and marks the number he'd already procured. 

He glances at the clock. It's almost noon and Gabriel must be back in York by now. 

"Bishopthorpe Palace," a voice greets. 

"I need to speak with the Archbishop Fell, please," he says. "Tell him it's from Father Anthony Crowley."

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmu on [Tumblr](https://naromoreau.tumblr.com/) <3  
> Or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xenoscientist/)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I'm absolutely bowled over by the love you've given this fic that was born out of a very personal experience. A very personal take. 
> 
> I can't thank all of you enough for all your love and your words and believe me when I say you guys are the highlight of my days. 
> 
> Some warnings for this chapter include explicit sexual content (written and image) and very clear depictions of blasphemy. Also, the Tag of the priests fucking in churches APPLIES HERE lol.
> 
> \------  
> As always my love to [Hatknitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HatKnitter) for being my very supportive beta. 
> 
> The absolutely amazing [Lei-Sam](https://lei-sam.tumblr.com/) <3 was again the one who made art for this chapter. Gracias, Lei! 💕
> 
> This chapter was especially difficult for the balance and I wouldn't have been able to do it without my two beautiful spouses [hanap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanap/pseuds/hanap) and [jenanigans1207](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenanigans1207/pseuds/Jenanigans1207) who read everything when I was having the usual crisis over doubting muy smut and yelled until I got confident enough to post. Love you all, babies!! ❤️
> 
> I also want to thank the group of Spanish Sheeñoras on Twitter for being so generous on their friendship and having accepted me so kindly. This chapter is for you guys. 💕

After two weeks, the weather eventually cools. 

Aziraphale feels it in his bones, the change of season that leaves the summer behind, a sprinkling of leaves falling, just a hint of color over the grass. It feels, in a way, as if the coldness of the days have settled deep in his skin, as if he can’t get rid of the chill crawling up his spine, making his hands feel numb, his insides cracking like ice. 

He feels vaguely sick. ‘ _ My love isn’t conditional _ .’ He can’t seem to erase the words that dance like a motif everytime he closes his eyes. He isn’t even sure he’s able to cry anymore. Perhaps he’s already spent his allotted amount of tears, after crying himself to sleep every night. 

Around him, however, life keeps going. Masses that Aziraphale celebrates like an afterthought, his heart obviously not in it. There are people who need him, and he trudges along because there isn’t another option. Nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. If anyone sees the circles under his eyes and asks about it, Aziraphale's only answer is, “It’s the flu, nothing to worry about.” Nobody cares after that. 

The last dregs of summer’s warmth slip away through nights filled with the accusing space where Crowley sits at the table, all of him a shuttered, strung up line. There are abandoned coffee mugs, meals shared in silence. Always in silence. 

The vacant spot on the sofa, the counterbalance askew when Aziraphale sits on his side and tries to read, his eyes slipping off the page to look around him. He catches the sight of russet hair on the periphery of his vision, the long lines of Crowley always pulling away. 

For all intents and purposes, Aziraphale is alone. 

How do you mourn something you weren’t supposed to have? How do you mourn the loss of something that was never yours to begin with?

_ But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.  _

Aziraphale watches Crowley meander through the narrow corridors of the parish, veering off when he knows moving forward would put him in a direct line of collision, because he can’t bear to see Crowley’s expression shift into that thing that balances between blankness and utter numbness. He can’t bear the heat of Crowley’s body, through a graze of cloth, crackling in the air around him, like a taunt, he thinks.  _ Look at what you will never have _ . 

Most of all, he can’t bear the silence. 

Anger would be better, Aziraphale thinks. Anything would be better than this utter void. Something, anything that could make Aziraphale feel…  _ Feel _ . 

Foolish and pathetic as he is, he has tried, still. Habit, perhaps. A good amount of hope, as well. Ragged, battered, hanging on by a thread. 

_ Would you like to watch something perhaps? Aziraphale asks him one day with a voice that seems to be shredded through his teeth.  _

_ Crowley doesn’t raise his eyes from his notes and doesn't answer, shakes his head _ .  _ Aziraphale sees the tired, tight line of his mouth, the curl of his fingers, blanched around the knuckles. He hasn't said a word to Aziraphale beyond the ones he couldn't avoid. He hasn't looked at him once, since…  _

_ Aziraphale watches him, and the words prickle at the tip of his tongue: ‘My love, I miss you. Give me my heart back. I can’t do this. I’m rent to pieces without you.’ _

He clicks his tongue, tugging the words back inside his mouth because it isn’t right. They both made promises long ago. 

The need to reach out is almost overwhelming, weighs like a shroud, ruinous and maddening, making him rot from within. He tells himself it would have been easier not knowing what i t feels like to touch Crowley, to  _ kiss _ him, to  _ adore _ him. To be blind to the warmth of his skin, to those wonderful, shivery exhales he gave so freely at Aziraphale’s kisses along his jaw, to the taste of him blowing open in Aziraphale’s mouth. It would have been easier not to learn how much Aziraphale needed his touch, his hands on him. The exquisite weight of their pressure, the sweet drag of their slide along his skin. 

It would have been better not knowing, because now he feels lost, walking and circling around doubts and questions with no answer. Because Crowley has seen him in a way no one else has. Not before, certainly no one after. Who else will show him the wonderful, unuttered things Aziraphale had kept inside unseen? Who else will make him  _ feel _ ? It’s Crowley he misses, but in him Aziraphale grieves the flicker of the chances he never got, the vulnerable chance to be truthful.

Squandered away. 

It’s been two weeks since they kissed. 

Two weeks are not enough, certainly not enough to mourn a loss, a dissolution. 

Not of something as big as this.

On the long, excruciatingly long nights, he wanders through memory. It’s difficult to stop, impossible even. Not when every single space is bedecked in Crowley’s presence, when Aziraphale’s heart almost falls out of his mouth every time he hears Crowley’s voice close by and never once directed at him, and the realization goes from a tight pressure in his chest and builds and  _ builds _ until it’s painful to consider continuing to live like this. He sees nothing inside his room except the flickering flood of darkness and silver. Empty. Utterly empty. 

He looks at the ceiling, gliding over these moments, these spots in his memory he knows as well as the sea knows the sand along its coasts.

A bright morning, Crowley smiling at him from behind a mug, offering the last slice of Aziraphale’s favourite dessert. 

A dark night, Crowley looking at him with a grin over a glass of wine, a wordless offer of companionship in the curl and angles of his body. 

_ Would you? I would give you the world. Everything you asked.  _

He sorely misses their talks. 

The Downlings’ dinner. 

That one hurts the most. 

Somehow Aziraphale wishes the summer would linger, would stretch a bit more, would allow him to cling to his memories, but the cold seems to wrench every single fleck and wisp of beloved memory away from him. 

It’s all terribly unfair. They are all he has. 

One morning, before dawn breaks, he finds himself kneeling in a pew, praying. He shifts, his cassock pulling at where it's trapped beneath his knees. Black as charcoal, black as death as well. Black, with that sort of finality to it that says there’s nothing beyond, the color of sin. Very appropriate, he thinks ruefully. 

_ Do not expect more, Aziraphale, this the final line. There’s nothing else for you. _

He prays. And thinks of his youth. Of the years already spent, spilled like wine poured carelessly from a glass, staining the mantle below. 

He prays for the Lord to spare him from this ache that seems to be devouring him. From this want that has seized him whole, a vicious grip around his heart, weighing so heavily he finds himself staggering as the days slip by. 

He blinks back the tears, and clenches his jaw because this is the same pew where they…

No. 

He prays. 

Surely, this must be the right path. 

His knees are accustomed to the hardness of the wood, to sleep little and give himself whole. But the echo comes back with his own voice, alien and small, carrying little comfort, when what he expects is an answer. 

An answer he knows will never come. Not here at least.

Aziraphale has never had a home. Not since his young years, as much as his father's house could have been considered a home, with his strict rules and steel angles regarding everything that strayed a little off what he had thought was right. Much like everything Aziraphale was. Much like everything Aziraphale had wanted. 

Leaving had been inconsequential, hadn’t brought a single sliver of longing, except for the freedom he had renounced. He’d packed his bags and never looked back. 

With nothing to lose, it had been somewhat easy. 

His bones ache now, it’s been long years he’s spent here. Long years taming the roar inside him that called like a clarion, bottling up every desire that showed a fissure in what he was supposed to be. In doing so he had deemed himself perfect, absolutely safe. Now he knows the stakes had been low. 

He hadn’t ever tried, it’d never been a true challenge. Trying to control the emotions that flare now is exhausting, trying to control his wretched heart from beating until it cracks his ribs open is almost impossible. 

He’s tired. 

Now he’s losing his home. The one he'd found in the crinkle of Crowley's eyes, Crowley in the light of a fast sunrise, the curl of his smile that used to be ready for him.

Aziraphale closes his eyes, bows his head low and prays for something different now. His tongue curls and spills forth the scratched-out plea, ‘ _ I don’t want to lose him _ ,  _ please, don’t make me lose him _ .  _ He’s all I have _ .’ 

Just having Crowley close would be enough. It  _ has _ to be. 

He grips his crucifix harder. 

Silence. 

Most of all, what he dreads is the silence. 

* * *

Aziraphale knows that if he keeps looking at the window for a bit longer he’s going to bore a hole through the glass. 

He can’t help it though. 

There’s movement inside the greenhouse, a shock of red and apparently white that has every bit of Aziraphale’s attention to the point he has forgotten to sip his tea that sits cold now on a nearby table. He’s standing onunder the threshold of the back door, leaning his weight against the jamb.

It’s torture. Of course it is. Having him so close that the possibility of reaching, of calling him and abating his ache is real, so very real every day. But knowing there’s effectively already a gulf, a heavy, definitive bar between them he can't slough off his shoulders.

Perhaps one day Crowley will forgive him and everything would be back to the way it was. Perhaps one day Aziraphale will feel as if he has finally pushed through the waves to take a new, sharp and pure lungful of air. 

Perhaps one day he can feel he’s living again. 

“Are you alright, Father?” It’s Tracy, who has crept up on him, though looking at the sharp heels she’s wearing, Aziraphale supposes it’s more about his own incapacity to care for the world around him than her stealth abilities. 

Aziraphale plasters on the smile he has already rehearsed. “Oh, yes, quite.”

“You’ve been watching the same…  _ spot _ for like an hour already.”

“I’m just enjoying the view,” he says truthfully, but he diverts his gaze to where two birds are chirping on the low branch of an oak tree. “It’s dreadfully boring inside.”

“I bet.” There’s a soft hint of a tease, a just-barely-there brush of something else that Aziraphale decides to ignore. 

He curls his arms around himself, bracing from the temperamental weather. Inside the greenhouse, Crowley stretches to reach for a potted plant hanging above his head, his shirt rucks up exposing a swath of the smooth skin of his stomach. Something that feels too much like burning coals thrashes inside him, kindling all the things he's desperately tried to stomp down for weeks. 

Inside the greenhouse, Crowley moves and opens the door. That hair, as red as a warning, shines bright and Aziraphale's twisted hopes seem to be forcibly plucked out of him and laid out against the day. Mixed with the daylight. Mixed with the petrichor of the ground beyond. 

Tangible and inescapable.

"You could go and talk to him, Father, I'm sure he won't mind," Tracy says casually. "Whatever happened between you, I'm sure it can be solved."

Aziraphale hadn't realized he'd sucked in a breath until he had to let out a loud puff to be able to talk. "What?"

Tracy cups his discarded tea cup between her hands, and nods in Crowley's direction. "I said that you should go and talk to Father Crowley."

Aziraphale skips over that bit with the ease of someone too used to this dance. "Why do you think something happened between us?" He asks, regretting the crumble of the summer, unable to blame the heat for the flush that has worked itself up to his cheeks. 

"Oh, come now, Father," she scoffs. "You two were joined at the hip. It was impossible to see one without the other."

Because of course she noticed it. 

"It isn't that simple," Aziraphale says, very quietly.

"Why not? Apologies, if heartfelt, are always enough between two people who…," she clears her throat, and gazes forward, "who  _ care _ about each other."

Aziraphale trips over the intent twirled and laced on her words, over the unaware hopes she doesn't know she's planting within him. 

They roll and slide on a tightrope, at the edge of him, and he can’t take it. 

"Sometimes it isn't that simple!" 

A nuthatch sings merrily over the flap of wings on the hedge. 

"It can be, if you want it to be," Tracy continues, undeterred. 

Aziraphale sighs, feeling the long hours spent in vigil digging deep into his bones, the weight of his own recriminations pulling him down, heavy as lead. 

He struggles for a sound, for the words that have been there, far back in his throat, macerating for two weeks, unable to spill forth. Needing someone who can talk back, someone that is not his reflection on the mirror. 

"I'm afraid I've made a terrible mistake," he grinds out. "I'm afraid I've done some things that can't be forgiven." He closes his eyes. "I may have promised things I couldn't give, that I can't give, that I can't-" Aziraphale takes a gulp of air. "That I  _ want _ to give, but I can't."

Tracy hums, and Aziraphale frets over the possibility of having said too much, of having shoved the mantle completely off the thing he's been desperately hiding. 

But Tracy's expression doesn't waver, admiring the tree, the zig-zagging path through which Crowley has disappeared just moments ago. 

"Why not?" Tracy asks, simply. "Is it something bad? Something criminal, perhaps?" And there’s a smirk in her voice, in the curl at the tip of her mouth. 

"Good Heavens, nothing of the sort!" Aziraphale huffs, but then he adds softly, "quite the opposite, actually."

"Then, why?"

And that’s exactly what he hasn’t stopped asking himself day after day. It seems unfair that the Lord has never answered, that he has come up empty handed night after night, prayer over prayer, and knees almost bruised by now bent in a pew, hoping the silence would beget an answer. It’s fear, he knows, and he’s rummaging for excuses, for something that tells him there isn't much he can do, because all his barriers, all his stacks of defenses, are painfully brittle.

Aziraphale considers silence for the short span of a few seconds. But there's something pressing and pulsing, writhing behind his ribs that is forcing the words out despite himself. 

"Because there are so many things I can't toss aside," he blurts out over a heaved sigh, and even before he speaks again he knows how untrue the words will ring, "because… it’s difficult to change. I can’t just– the life I have here–"

For a minute, Aziraphalle feels warm despite the cold, because he isn’t standing numbly against a mahogany jamb, but pushing the memories of two weeks ago hard against a mattress in a low-lit room. painfully aware of the vicious thud of his heart in his chest. 

He considers Tracy, standing silent next to him. It doesn’t matter that she probably doesn’t understand half the things he’s saying, the purpose behind the half-aborted sentences. This conversation has never been about that, after all. 

Tracy nods without saying a word and turns around. 

“Well, Father,” she says, “I hope it’s a good life.”

A rustle of dry leaves under a swish of air, and the words settle like loose cobblestones on a paved road. 

Aziraphale clenches his jaw and hears her walk away. 

* * *

  
  


Aziraphale puts the mail pile on his desk and rearranges it until he has sorted the most urgent matters to one side to pass on to Tracy. A couple of baptisms, nothing that would demand him to change the steady flow of his schedule for the next week. 

He likes consistency, or at least… he has always relied on consistency to battle through his weeks. When the days spin around in a haze, a bleak loop of hours that always look the same, it’s important somehow to have things to pin time down, otherwise he’d go mad. 

There’s a white, official-looking envelope in front of him he has refused to open for a few hours now. He doesn’t even need to read the return address to know it’s from Gabriel, or at least from Gabriel’s office. 

He blows a puff of air, and takes a sip of his tea before scraping enough courage to read the letter. Probably another invitation to a rather dull dinner to which Aziraphale will have to attend very much despite himself. 

It’s almost noon and lunch is close, but rather than being eager for the hour to come, as has been his custom up until recently, there’s a sort of slithering thing moving inside him, making his stomach churn. Having to spend the next two hours across from a silent Crowley is at least better than not having him there at all, he tells himself. 

He takes his letter-opener and extracts the paper from the envelope. He starts reading the letter, but when he reaches the second paragraph Aziraphale's mouth falls shock-open, the paper goes slack in his grip.

There's a rush of ice clawing up his spine, his mouth dry enough that his tongue feels like it’s scratching against his teeth. Aziraphale haphazardly collects himself from the chair, leaves the letter discarded on his desk. 

He fumbles with the door, pulling it open, barely aware of how it rattles on its hinges when it bounces against the wall. 

Aziraphale almost throws himself headlong over Tracy's desk, disregarding her gasped words of surprise, grabbing the receiver of the phone and dialing the number in a frenzy. His fingers slip through the rotary several times before he can make the call.

"Bishopthorpe Palace," a voice drones. 

Aziraphale presses the receiver against his ear so hard, his knuckles blanch. "I need to speak with Gabriel."

A moment of silence. "Do you mean, His Grace, the Archbishop Fell?" The voice says, pointedly. 

"However you want to call him," Aziraphale bristles. "Tell him it's from his brother and I won't take a no for an answer. Tell him that it's  _ extremely _ urgent."

Aziraphale almost doesn't register the steely edge of his own voice over the red-tinged anger sweeping up to his head. All the time he's spent taming and trampling down his bitterness over Gabriel's ability to stomp on everything he has always been is slicing through his flesh, through his gossamer-like lies.

Apparently the person at the other end is quite aware of how inadvisable it is to trifle with him. "I, uh… please, give me a moment."

Aziraphale only huffs some sort of acknowledgement. 

Not a minute later a voice booms through the line. "Yes?"

"Gabriel," Aziraphale says, bypassing any greeting. Politeness seems to have deserted him completely. "I got your letter in the mail today."

"Ah, Aziraphale, it's you," Gabriel answers, dismissive. "I thought it was Sandy." A scoff. "What do  _ you _ want?"

Perhaps, at any other time, his words would have only served to put Aziraphale back in the place Gabriel assigned for him twenty years ago. Never complaining. Head bowed. Right now, it's as if all the fury of the past years has clustered slowly, one word, one look, one action at a time, filling him completely. 

"I want to know why you're reassigning Father Crowley," Aziraphale whips out. At his side, Tracy stands from her chair and scuffles away. "Why didn't you ask me, at least? You can't just take him away like that!" 

He's yelling. He knows he's yelling at the Archbishop of York. At the brother that's always been nothing but a constant reminder of how little Aziraphale cares, of how oddly he fits in a world not made for him. 

"I didn't know I needed your permission, Aziraphale," Gabriel says, flatly. "I can do whatever I see fit, and I suggest you control your tone."

"You haven't answered me," Aziraphale pushes through. "What's the reason behind your decision? He's doing good work here." The selfish lie claws at his throat, at his tongue, but he's past caring. 

Gabriel huffs. "Not that I need to explain myself to you, but this wasn't my decision."

" _ What _ ?"

"Father Crowley requested the transfer two weeks ago. I thought he'd discussed the matter with you. He said he found it impossible to continue his ministry in Tadfield."

Aziraphale tries to make sense of the words but he's failing miserably. "He…" Aziraphale tries again. "He asked for it?"

"Yes, Aziraphale." Gabriel sounds bored. "I told him it would take time, but he said he didn't care. To be honest, I don't like to comply with these types of requests because the work of the Lord has to be done despite one's feelings, but he's a bad influence on you." He clears his throat. "I haven't forgotten the party."

Something in Aziraphale's stomach twists, meanly. 

"Anyway," Gabriel, continues, "he's leaving tomorrow, according to schedule. And Aziraphale, try not to be so transparent."

Suddenly, a brittle chill creeps up his spine. "What are you talking about?"

"C'mon. I can see you've been slacking and probably making Father Crowley take care of most of your job and the bloke got tired. I expect more from you, Aziraphale. You can't be–"

But the next phrase is lost to the click of the receiver when Aziraphale puts it back in its cradle with trembling hands. 

He's leaving. Crowley is  _ leaving _ . 

_ And thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty. _

He's leaving  _ him _ .

Aziraphale knows it would be easy to do nothing, to stay silent. To pile his dreams, his hopes and words, back down inside himself and set them alight. To use them then to light the hearth of the empty space inside himself. So that, many years from now, when his hands are cold and his heart has forgotten what is to beat faster for a touch, or a face, or a memory, he can spend a shard of that heat to remind himself. 

To know there was a time he  _ loved _ . To remind himself what he was capable of. 

He could stay silent and watch the Bentley drive away while he waves a hand that will never know again what is to card through silk-soft red hair, to curl around the sharp flare of a hip.

To cup a warm cheek. 

The air is crushed out of his lungs so hard he staggers and clasps the nearby desk for balance. 

Is it worth it?

_ Is it _ ?

The bells have tolled and this is the hour. 

Can he exchange his own life for fear of the unknown?

_ There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. _

It's a risk. But what in life isn't? When his time comes, lying in an empty room, his head set on a pillow never to rise again, will he regret this?

Can he look at the void of darkness, unafraid, and say ‘ _ take me, all I've done, I'm at peace with it.’ _ ?

No. Aziraphale swallows thickly, and shears off his shackles, mind made. This time, silence isn't an option. 

He strolls forward. 

_ Arise, my darling, my fair one, and come away.  _

* * *

Crowley takes his sunglasses off and rubs his eyes. Just a half hour more of insipid confessions regarding petty arguments and insignificant lies. 

He doesn't spare one thought for the fact he should be doing this with a bloodletting of his own. A little difficult because he knows, no matter how many penances he's given, there will be no absolution for him. 

He shakes his head at the thought , thenstartles when he hears the loud clank of the church door as it closes. 

Odd. 

He waits for a few seconds, sitting in his spot in the confessional, thinking maybe he's heard wrong, and any minute now someone is going to sit on the other side to start this all over again. But then the door of his side opens with a swift pull, and he is almost blinded by the light pouring through the gap. 

Aziraphale is standing in front of him, a figure cut against the brightness of the day that comes seeping through the windows above, catching in the unruly white-blonde hair. 

"You're here!" Aziraphale heaves the words out as if he has arrived running from wherever he’d been. His cheeks are flushed and his forehead is damp. 

Crowley blinks twice before answering, “‘Course I’m here, where else am I supposed to be?” It’s strange, in a way, after having tried to ignore his presence for two weeks. As if that had been possible, as if every moment hadn’t been like an excruciatingly long  _ Via Crucis _ . 

The ever-present pain thrashes wildly, inside him.

Aziraphale takes one step forward, standing just outside the small space of the confessionary, his face pinched in anguish. “I thought you were gone!”

“What?”

“I got a letter from Gabriel today saying you were going to be reassigned.” There’s some sort of misery batting at the words, making them sound heavier than just a simple statement. “When were you planning to tell me?”

_ Oh, shit _ . 

“Today,” Crowley says, honestly.

“Today,” Aziraphale echoes, sharply. “It says you have to leave tomorrow. Did you know that? Did you ask for this?”

There’s no purpose in keeping this from him. There’s no purpose in continuing to shut himself off because, at least for some sort of twisted sense of balance, he doesn’t want to have anything to regret in the future. 

So what if the truth hurts? So what if it digs deep inside Aziraphale, what if it digs inside him as well? He has only hours.

“I did.” He stands from the small chair, because he isn’t doing this looking like a child cowed down by fear. He needs to look Aziraphale in the eyes. “I’ve known for two days now. Gabriel personally informed me by phone.”

Aziraphale makes a sound as if he’s hurt, his whole face falling as if collapsing under a too-heavy weight. “Why, Crowley?”

The pain, the sharp-edge ache slithers behind his ribcage, and Crowley barks out the void carcass of a laugh. 

“What do you mean ‘why,’ Aziraphale? Isn’t it clear?”

“Do you hate me that much?” Aziraphale asks quietly, but Crowley can hear how his voice scratches roughly against his throat. 

“Of course not!” Crowley throws his head back, and runs his twitching hand through his shock of hair to stop his impulse to reach and  _ touch _ . “Of course I do not bloody hate you. I don’t know if you ever listen, but when I said I loved you, I meant it. And that’s not going to change.”

“Then why?”

Crowley grinds his teeth and smiles, a broken, sad thing. “Because I’m fucking tired, and I can’t keep watching you. Wanting you. Having to stop myself from touching you, knowing I had you and that’s never gonna happen again. It’ll kill me. I’m not that fucking strong.”

“ _Crowley,”_ Aziraphale starts.

“And above everything else, you don’t deserve this,” Crowley keeps going, clenching his fists to ground himself. “You don’t deserve to feel torn.” 

His gaze has drifted to one side, as he tries to find comfort in the familiar lines of the altar, and the next words catch him completely off-balance.

“I love you,” Aziraphale breathes. “I love you.  _ Please _ don’t go.”

Crowley whines, at the far back of his throat, like a wounded animal. He closes his eyes. “ _ Aziraphale _ …”

“Would you please look at me?”

There’s an all-consuming fear licking at his insides, the fear that his senses have finally been spirited away in these two maddening weeks, because this  _ can’t _ be right. 

“Would you, my dear?” Aziraphale repeats, earnestly, so earnestly it makes Crowley’s heart almost crack his ribs. 

He levers his gaze back up to face those impossibly blue eyes. Aziraphale is serious, but there’s a trace of something incredibly soft easing around his mouth, his cheeks. 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says, taking a step forward. He’s so close Crowley can smell that hint of lavender, the purple synesthetic hues he’s so sorely missed. His breath hitches tight in his chest. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that nothing matters to me more than you. I’ll leave this life, gladly, if it means you’ll share a new one with me. If it means I’ll get to touch you, to kiss you every day the Lord deems worth granting me to be at your side. Whatever you want, whatever at all. I’ll give you everything. Please, my darling, my love,  _ please _ , forgive me.” 

The light glints off Aziraphale's eyes, catching in the tears at the corners, and a second ticks away. 

Crowley darts forward. 

He grabs Aziraphale’s cheeks and presses their lips together, relishing the way Aziraphale gasps a soft noise of surprise through shock-parted lips before pushing forward. The warm, heavy weight of his body leans in to Crowley, demanding, and eager, and as if he remembers exactly the reaction to every pull and drag of Crowley’s tongue from two weeks ago, he opens sweetly at the first push Crowley gives. Aziraphale iss blazing, hot and bright, against Crowley, raking perfect teeth over Crowley’s lower lip, licking him and nipping with an absurd lack of control that makes Crowley’s toes curl in his loafers. 

"Do you mean it?" Crowley asks hotly around a moan, falling apart at the seams. Aziraphale pulls him in tightly by his arse, his broad hands massaging the flesh underneath his trousers which makes Crowley release a plaintive groan. 

“ Whatsoever thy soul desireth, I will even do it for thee, my love,” Aziraphale breathes in Crowley’s mouth, his voice dark as the wood of the pews, rubbing the significant hardness in his trousers against Crowley. “I shall never part from you. Never again.”

A groan breaks loose from Crowley’s throat and he curls a hand around Aziraphale’s collar, feeling the thick, broad warmth of Aziraphale’s thigh pushing between his legs. 

“ _ Angel _ , I love you,” he sucks Aziraphale’s lip into his mouth, and Aziraphale kisses him back, catching all the words around swirls of his tongue, “Fuck, I  _ want _ you."

A hoarse moan rumbles deep in Aziraphale's chest, making Crowley's cock twitch. "Then I'll have you, and you'll be mine."

And it’s as if their shared want, the cut-off desires of the past weeks, were catching up to them, because it’s rushed and frantic, a hot and heavy push and pull of hands and mouths and tongues, deep in each other.

During the many long nights he's imagined it, not once has he thought it would feel like this. So overwhelming, as if finally discovering a long-sought truth, afraid of losing himself in the storm of Aziraphale's touch.

And it's urgent, but somehow, as Aziraphale presses his thigh up against the bulge in Crowley's trousers, kissing the side of his neck, Crowley realizes it's not the uneasy, shameful tug of sin that he expected to feel, heavy in his stomach, that thing that accompanies what must be done always in darkness. It is, instead, the desperate joy of love, burning ardently. 

Flayed before God, in his Home. 

They fall inside the confessionary again, and Crowley curls a hand around the edge of the jamb of the door for balance, feeling that thing, that sour, poisonous thing that had clawed its way to the center of his heart, fizzling out, shrinking and vanishing with every sweet word Aziraphale utters against his skin. 

Aziraphale’s hands ease around him, finding the sides of his chest, the front line of his shirt, and he would be lying if he said he doesn't find the display of artless mess particularly arousing. There's something heady in seeing Aziraphale -  _ lust-stained cheeks, red-stung lips and panting _ \- wanting him so much he's practically tearing the lower buttons of his shirt open, tugging it out from his trousers. 

"Dear Lord," Aziraphale gasps between kisses at Crowley's pulse spot, his hands now warm and trembling over the soft hollow of Crowley's stomach, skating down to his belt. "I want you so much. Would you let me… let me…"

"Anything, everything you want," Crowley blurts out, kissing his lips again. "I'm all yours."

It's perhaps unfair, the fact Aziraphale has his hands splayed open against his bare skin and Crowley hasn't been able to lay a finger on what lies beneath all the terrible black. He considers trying to get what he wants, but then Aziraphale falls to his knees, pawing at Crowley's zipper, and he can't help the way his hips tip up, a wanton roll that's an invitation all on its own. 

"A-Aziraphale?"

"Please, can I…" His hand hovers over the lewdly stretched fabric of Crowley's boxers and he looks up at him, pleading. 

"Fuck, Angel, yeah." Through the fog, a thought springs up. "Wait. The door? Did you…"

Aziraphale pulls the waistband down, taking Crowley's hard cock in his hand, closing warm fingers around it. "I closed it. No one will come."

Crowley makes a shivery noise when Aziraphale strokes him, smearing the glistening bead of precome at the tip with his broad thumb. The sight is almost enough to undo him, and he digs his nails into the unyielding wood around him. Aziraphale spans the sparse swell of his thigh with a hand and tries to splay his legs open wider, as far as his trousers will let him.

"You're beautiful, my love," Aziraphale says, kissing his sack, the veiny underside, without a shard of hesitation. "Exquisite. I can't believe you're mine."

And Crowley isn't prepared, he's definitely  _ not  _ fucking prepared to feel the tight pressure of Aziraphale's hot, wet mouth closing around him, to hear him moaning around the wide stretch of his cock as if he's savouring him. 

"Jesus fuck _, Angel_."

Crowley cries out, dropping his head back, and his hand finds the soft mess of beloved hair just as Aziraphale starts sucking him, a hand tightly curled around the base where his mouth doesn't reach. It's painfully clear then that he isn't going to last long, certainly not with Aziraphale swirling his tongue around the fat head, and teasing the underside in every downstroke. And if he lacks experience, Crowley certainly can't tell, because it's been too long, too damn long, and at the same time he's glad he's waited again to feel like this. 

Nothing can compare to this. 

It's the first sight of land after the deluge, the first sip of water after forty days in the desert. 

Crowley's breath is shallow, his jaw working around words he doesn't get to say, and something hot and heavy coils down in his stomach as he watches Aziraphale's plush lips, obscenely red and wide open. 

Not once, not even in his wildest dreams could he have imagined the exact way this would happen – how Aziraphale's lashes flutter, brushing his round cheeks, the scarlet tint dusting over the bridge of his small nose, the tingling sensation of his fingers kneading Crowley's hip, pulling him closer to force him down his throat. 

It's perhaps artless, Crowley can feel the excess of spit mixing with his precome, flowing down the shaft of his cock in every glide, making a wet mess of his pubes, of the creases of his thighs.

But it's enough, enough and so much more, and that ball of white hot pressure starts to unravel at the bottom of his spine, fanning out across his pelvis, crawling up his legs. 

"Aziraphale, I'm– I'm gonna come, you should stop," he pleads, completely broken, putting some sort of force in his pull on Aziraphale's hair. "I can't–"

Aziraphale pulls back, pumping him. "Come in my mouth, dearest.  _ Please _ ," he says, working the words hoarsely, around a throat fucked open. "Allow me to taste you."

He takes him back in his mouth, finding one of Crowley's hands with his, lacing their fingers together and sucks him, licks him until the tapered head of his cock falls in a tight fit at the back of Aziraphale's throat and Crowley feels the searing, singing fire of his orgasm rippling through him. He comes with a sob-like whine that sounds a lot like  _ Angel _ , spilling hot pulses of come in spurts that seem endless, that set alight every nerve, join, and muscle in its wake. Aziraphale doesn't let him go until the jerking of his hips stops, and he's a shuddering, satisfied mess, standing on wobbly legs.

Crowley feels his heart climbing up his throat and gasps for breath, with the placid gentleness of Aziraphale's hand in his.

"I love you," Crowley says, when Aziraphale stands up and kisses him roughly, heady with intent. "Aziraphale, I love you.  _ Please _ , have me."

Aziraphale trembles in his arms. "A-are you sure? We don't have to do anything more today. I'm perfectly content with having you with me. Just like this."

Crowley tsks and cups the hot, hard length of him through his trousers, kissing the side of his neck, his lips, making him groan.

"I've never been surer of anything in my life," he wheedles against the wild rhythm of Aziraphale's pulse-spot. 

And then Aziraphale is kissing him again, and there's a riot of hands over him, blunt nails marking his skin and raking the hard line of his hipbones. A burst of sensation everywhere. 

Crowley fumbles his way through the maddening ordeal of setting Aziraphale free, tugging at his belt until he finally has him in hand, stroking at his wonderfully thick cock. Aziraphale's erection jerks in his hand, head almost purple, as a testament to how eager he is, to how much he wants this, and a shaky breath puffs out of him. 

"Crowley," Aziraphale moans, stopping with both hands circling Crowley's waist. "How do you– How do you want to do this?"

And suddenly there's only one overwhelming idea in Crowley's mind, a beacon blazing red.

"Like this." 

He scoots out of the confessionary and presses his hands flat against the top part of a pew, bending over ever so slightly. 

"Mercy," Aziraphale crushes the word against the nape of his neck and presses his body, warm and heavy, against Crowley's back. "I don't know how I've been able to control myself, kept myself from doing this." He tilts Crowley's face to one side and kisses him, pulls his trousers down until they pool at his feet.

"Don't hold back now, then," Crowley says, arching against the slide of Aziraphale's cock between his buttocks. "Give me everything you want. Take everything you need from me."

Aziraphale presses the naked warmth of his thighs against his and holds him with his hands spread over his chest, over his heart. 

"I haven't done this in many years," Aziraphale says softly, still rocking against him. "And I'm afraid I don't have anything to, uh, to prepare you to take me."

Crowley's breathless, every single thought that isn't related to Aziraphale fucking him soon vanishing from his mind. "The Annointing oil," he says, half delirious with anticipation. "There's still some."

Aziraphale stops, and for a moment Crowley feels he's fucked this up, that this somehow crossed a line, even if the oil was nothing special to begin with. 

But then Aziraphale kisses the clothed slope of his shoulder. "Wait for me."

He disappears from sight through the sacristy's door, and it isn't long before he's back with a bottle of oil. 

Soon Crowley feels the thick press of a finger sliding along the crease of his arse, prodding at his rim.

"Is this alright?" Aziraphale asks, circling his opening.

Crowley groans. "That's perfect, keep going."

He can feel the blunt pressure of Aziraphale's finger slowly slicking him up, pushing past the tight clench of his arsehole and Crowley burns with the greedy need for more, suddenly letting all the so-called sins take over. 

He kicks his hips back, trying to take Aziraphale's fingers deeper. The slow, careful push of Aziraphale is excruciating and Crowley can't take it. He isn't supposed to have done this in years but he isn't going to lie and say he hasn't spent too many a night with three fingers buried up to the third knuckle imagining how Aziraphale's cock would feel inside him. How it would drag along his walls, stuffing him, making him feel wonderfully full. 

"You can go deeper, faster," he says instead. 

Aziraphale's next intake of air is ragged, "I don't want to hurt you."

"I can take it," he moans around a particularly good press of a finger. "Feels good.  _ So _ good." He lets his hips roll back, giving a wavering groan. "Add another."

Aziraphale does as he’s told, and it isn't long before Crowley is bouncing his weight back on Aziraphale's fingers, making them inch deeper inside him. 

"Please, Crowley," Aziraphale whines. "You're  _ too _ tight. You'll hurt yourself. Slow down."

Crowley moans. "Nonsense. Add another."

The pressure doesn't increase and it seems Aziraphale is going to take his sweet time to get him loose, slick, and open.

Crowley can't take it. 

He reaches behind and shoves one of his own, dry fingers inside his rim, hissing at the forceful entrance. 

"Crowley!" Aziraphale's fingers go still next to his. "You'll–"

"Ngh. Relax. Fuck, it's good." There's an excess of oil in him, and it doesn't take him long before he's dragging Aziraphale with him as he finally fucks himself with both their hands. "Angel, please. Let me have you. I can take you now. I  _ need _ you."

He takes his hand away and braces against the hard wood of the pew, anticipating Aziraphale's next move.

"Alright." Aziraphale kisses the clothed span of his back, his voice almost a choked sound, freeing his hand. Crowley sobs at the loss. " _ Lord _ . Dearest."

And then there's the heavy, hot press of Aziraphale's blunt cockhead teasing at Crowley's rim, but without pressing forward. 

"Aziraphale, c'mon," Crowley groans, desperate for Something, Anything. It feels as if he has already waited a lifetime. " _ Please _ ."

"I don't want to  _ hurt _ you."

Crowley makes a pained sound and reaches back, clasping his hand around Aziraphale's erection, closer at the tip. Aziraphale doesn't have time to protest before Crowley holds him in place, hitching his hips back and taking, finally, the fat head inside him. 

It slides into him, slowly, the burn thrilling, filling him in a way that's satisfying but slightly painful. It catches a little at the entrance, until the first resistance passes and Aziraphale is finally inside him. 

"Oh,  _ God _ ." Aziraphale's hands find purchase around his hips and try to hold him steady. " _ Jesus _ . Crowley, you're too tight. I'm too big for you."

"No," Crowley grinds out, and rocks back with a forceful thrust until he's finally stretched wide and clenching around Aziraphale's whole cock, his spine curling in pleasure. " _ Fuck _ ."

Crowley shivers, moaning loudly at how Aziraphale shifts and settles inside him. The church feels too wide, and his stomach quivers, his thighs shaking, and there's too much to feel everywhere around. The hard grip of Aziraphale's hands on his hips, the sweat dampening his collar, flowing down his temples. And his arse,  _ Christ _ , stretched and sensitive, around  _ Aziraphale _ . 

Aziraphale whines and his head falls heavy between Crowley's shoulder blades, his chest heaving with heavy breaths against his back. Crowley's body feels tight all over, his blood ringing in his ears, because Aziraphale is a very tight fit, his rim twitching around every inch of him. 

"Fuck. Give me a sec," Crowley gasps, feeling the whole line of Aziraphale's body flowing in sync with him. The thud of Aziraphale's heart hard against his back. "I'm just–"

"It's alright, my love." One shivery exhale. "It's alright."

Slowly, Crowley's breath evens out. 

"Move, Angel. Please."

As if he had been waiting for the command, Aziraphale gives a gentle roll, dragging high moans from both of them. 

"I'm not–" Aziraphale thrusts once, his hands almost scratching Crowley's skin. "I'm not going to last long."

"’S okay." Crowley throws his head back, arching into every press of Aziraphale's hips. "Neither will I," he says, and it's true. His cock is already hard and heavy between his legs.

It's as if Aziraphale is finally falling, crumbling against him, his hands sliding down his pelvis, almost over his thighs to pull Crowley closer. He thrusts hard, fast, with shoves of his hips that are unrelenting, and at the same time painfully intimate, with the way he buries words against Crowley's ear, against his hair. 

"I love you," Aziraphale pants, between wet smacks of his hips opening Crowley for him in every movement, now curling his hands around Crowley's chest, his fingers slipping between the buttons of Crowley's clerical shirt. "I love you, I  _ love you _ ."

And it's as sacred as a hymn, and Crowley would like to say ‘ _ me too’ _ , but every push, every perfect drag, hits against his prostate and he's a mess of loud moans and broken whines. 

And Crowley can do nothing but let himself go with every delicious push, every sweet and wonderfully tight drag, crying out as Aziraphale works his way deeper and harder into the slick heat of him. 

He can do nothing but take it, as Aziraphale finally fucks him with all the power behind those magnificent thighs he's admired from afar, and too soon another orgasm is wrung out of him – a feeble, soft thing that leaves Crowley breathless and weak, swaying under Aziraphale's more urgent snap of hips.

It's maddening to think this also has to come to an end, but Crowley knows this beautiful, bright thing is the beginning of something brighter, of something better. Gone are the lonely hours of their past, the silent barrier between them, the sacrifice to the collar at their necks. 

It's only them. 

Before God, in judgement. 

"I'm close," Aziraphale grinds out. "Can I–"

And it's so very arousing, what he's asking, to leave some of him inside Crowley, to mark him as his own with his seed. Not a gift squandered, given to the land like Onan, but something born out of love and preserved by it. It's enough to push a whine from Crowley's throat.

"Fill me up." Crowley has it in him to gently roll his hips, his muscles working in sync with Aziraphale's. "Want all of it. All of you."

Aziraphale sort of gasps a blasphemy, crushed against Crowley's back, and drives fast and hard against Crowley's welcoming warmth, pushing in frantic, stuttered movements until he buries his head at the side of Crowley's neck, finally spilling his come deep in Crowley's arse. 

A groan bounces off the walls, raw and incredibly honest in its volume, a broken shout that will forever inhabit this hall. 

When the blur finally fades, Crowley realizes Aziraphale is pressing kisses to the damp mess of his hair, to a hand he's lifted from the pew, a soft graze of lips over his knuckles. 

"I love you," Aziraphale says again, as if it hadn't been clear, as if there had been any doubts. "You smell good."

Crowley laughs at that, because Aziraphale is nosing up the spot behind his ear, pulling back from him at least. 

The trickle of his come down Crowley's thighs tingles, and his arse feels blessedly sore. 

"Where do we go from hereto now?" Crowley finally asks, because it isn't wise to blind themselves to reality. There's still too much to be settled. 

"Bishopthorpe Palace," Aziraphale says, determined, helping Crowley to dress himself. 

His shirt is a lost cause, some buttons forever lost to the ground. 

"Are you sure? Angel, you don't have to–"

"Oh, but I do. It's a conversation that is long overdue." Crowley has had hopes, but even the wildest ones didn't include what Aziraphale is suggesting. There must be some sort of frisson of fear easing around his face, because Aziraphale says, "Do not be afraid, darling. Remember the scriptures, ‘ _ and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.’  _ There's nothing Gabriel can say that would make me change my mind, because I love you like my own soul."

"Fuck, Angel, I love you."

The reality finally smashes against him, making him stagger. Because it's  _ actually _ happening. He blinks hard, a brutal fear that somehow Aziraphale will be hurt in this endeavor, and that it isn't worth it.

Crowley isn't worth it. 

"My love, are you alright?" Aziraphale asks him, kissing his cheek with blissful nonchalance. 

"Yeah, I just–" He grinds his teeth. "Can I shower first?"

"Of course we can." Aziraphale laces a hand around his waist. "Together, perhaps?"

_ Christ _ . So, this is the new world. 

"Lead the way, Angel."

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, the wonderful [Phantomstardemon](https://singasongrightnow.tumblr.com/) made lovely art for the first part of this chapter, you can see [Here](https://singasongrightnow.tumblr.com/post/639954823524057088/sketches-for-the-sad-pining-part-of-naromoreau-s): 
> 
> Hmu on [Tumblr](https://naromoreau.tumblr.com/) <3  
> Or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xenoscientist/)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're finally here! I'm glad but also sad to see this story end, but I want to thank you each and everyone of you who took the time to read this and stayed for the ride. You all have my eternal love!
> 
> This chapter took me a bit because it has a scene that was a little difficult to write for personal reasons, so I'm really thankful for your patience. 
> 
> This IS the final chapter, however I have also an epilogue ready, already written that I'll post tomorrow, because I felt the story needed that final closure. 
> 
> As always, many thanks to HatKnitter for being the very best supportive beta there is in existence, for being always ready to help me no matter the hour. 
> 
> And this would not have been possible without the support of my soulmates Hanap and Jenanigans1207 who proofread it, cheered it and were there with me in every step of the way to offer me a hand, when this chapter seemed daunting. They've been my rock and my everything, babies I can't express how much I love both of you. 
> 
> To caedmon for being the very best friend, for encouraging me and for believing in me when I found myself spent. Haley, you're a treasure!!!
> 
> And to my friends, the lovelies quiltedspacemittens and saretton, who were always there with their words and undying support in each chapter. I don't know how to thank you!!! 
> 
> So, without much to add, here it is, the end of the road. And very very happy beginning of a New Year.

Aziraphale pushes the church's door open with one hand, refusing to let go of the dry warmth of Crowley's fingers that slip perfectly against his own. It seems odd, it was so easy. Just a swift pull, a slide of palms and skin, and Crowley's hand had fit into his as if it belonged there. Had made a home of its own in Aziraphale's grasp. 

The old wood yields, its hinges responding to Aziraphale's touch, finally revealing the world outside. There's a breeze. Cold, scented, and mellow. Sighing all around them, stirring the leaves, unbothered. Kissing their faces, the free spaces of their necks where the clerical collars are no longer in place. 

They've taken them off in silent agreement.

And it's perfect, really, the way they fit together. The way Aziraphale has molded so beautifully to every angle of Crowley's body, because Crowley has lived within him for some time now, carving a space to call his own in Aziraphale's heart. Any trace of fear, of doubt, is gone. Even though he knows there are things to settle before they can be free, things of the world they need to solve and can't ignore. But nothing matters, not right now.

_ I've found him, whom my soul loveth. _

Aziraphale raises their joined hands and brushes a kiss over Crowley's knuckles. 

"I love you," he says, because truer words haven't been spoken and he needs them to run free and out into the day. "I will never part from you again, my darling."

Crowley sighs, whisper-soft, at his side. " _ Angel _ . Are you sure?" They're standing under the lintel of the church, crossing the threshold between two worlds. "It isn't too late if you want to…," Crowley swallows, "to ignore what just happened, to–"

"Crowley." Aziraphale cups Crowley's cheek, kisses him softly again, relishing the softness of his lips, the way they seek his, always asking for more. Aziraphale's heart twists at the clear effort Crowley is making to spare him the exodus they must certainly face. "I chose you. I choose you. You've given me  _ myself _ , my life. I have nothing without you."

"But I have nothing to give you but meager savings that could maybe last us a week," Crowley grouses. "We have no money, nothing, no place to go, and I– I can live like this,  _ have _ lived like this. It isn't nice to starve, and you– you don't deserve that. You don't deserve–"

His words tear at Aziraphale's heart. Crowley has never told him much about his time before the church, and the veiled reality behind those scarce affirmations are enough to make Aziraphale's breath singe his lungs. 

"Oh,  _ Crowley _ . My love." He clutches Crowley's hands between his, and buries ardent words in his skin. " _ Entreat me not to leave thee. Or to return from following after thee. For wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people. And thy god, my god _ ." Aziraphale sees Crowley's eyes glaze, can see the worry-lines of his face shift, if just the barest amount. His hand tightens around Aziraphale's fingers. "We'll find a way. I'll take care of you," Aziraphale says. And he feels victorious. "I won't let you suffer. I'm not completely defenseless against the world." He sighs, "My parents left me some money I've never touched. That will help us stay on our feet until we can manage to get a job. Don't worry, my love, I'll fix everything." 

"I– I can't believe it can be this easy." Crowley stares at him before taking him in his arms and pressing their lips together. "I love you," he breathes softly, but his hands cling to Aziraphale's shirt with unhinged desperation. "I can't believe we're doing this."

When they part, Crowley's smiling, an open, unguarded joy sitting at the edges of his eyes, around his mouth. He puts his sunglasses back in place, but they don't feel like an insurmountable barrier anymore. 

Aziraphale glances back through the door at the nave, at the altar, at the pews. The blood of the sacrificial lamb has been spilled, and here they are with their shoes on their feet. _ Goodbye _ , his heart says silently in each beat, and it's time. 

It's time. 

They make their way to the vicarage hand in hand. 

Aziraphale can't help but marvel. The world looks starkly different with the sun shining over the landscape. It feels  _ new _ . The colors bursting, the air fragrant, as if somehow he'd never paid attention to the possibilities hiding in every hue of the sky. 

And he hasn't stopped smiling, he doesn't think he would be able to even if he tries. He squeezes Crowley's hand, gently. Crowley, who walks beside him now with something unguarded in his gait, in the grin he can't suppress.

Aziraphale gazes his fill at Crowley, and the sight runs deep into his veins like a heady vintage, shooting straight to his heart, making it thunder, straight to his mind, driving him into a haze. Sweeter than sacramental wine. 

The small path stretches, winding up like a ribbon, and Aziraphale had never realized how short the walk is from door to door until he sees Tracy standing at the other end of it. There's a short lapse when he feels a residual fear swirling its way around the carved welts that the long years of hiding have left inside him. Dregs of bygone days.

But she's smiling, arms crossed over her chest. 

"Angel," Crowley whispers, and there are fine grains of dread roughing up his voice, "you can let go of my hand if you want."

_ Never again _ , Aziraphale thinks. He won't be Peter, waiting for the rooster to crow, to weep his lies, his cowardice, at the break of dawn. He won't deny Crowley, ever again. 

"No." He stops and faces Crowley. "For too long I feared to touch you. Now that I'm permitted to do so as much as I please, I don't intend to stop."

Crowley remains struck-silent. 

They close the distance, the gravel crunching beneath their feet. 

"Hello, Father," Tracy says, looking at him. Then at Crowley, "Father."

"You mustn't call us that anymore," Aziraphale answers. "Not after today."

She shrugs. "Why not? There isn't anything they can do to take that away from you, from both of you. Once a priest, always a priest. The archbishop might say many things. Doesn't mean he can sever the link you have with Above."

"I don't think Gabriel would agree," Aziraphale says ruefully. 

"Well, if I may be excused, I know he's your brother, Father, but he always was a bit of a pompous tosser–"

"Tracy!" 

Crowley chuckles, "No, no, she's right. Let her speak."

Tracy continues, unperturbed. "What I'm trying to say is that life's too short to follow other people's ideas of what you ought to do, or ought not to do. You generally end up trying to please everyone but yourself." She grins. "Happy to see that's no longer the case."

Aziraphale clears his throat. "Yes, well," he says. "T-thank you. For everything. I hope you can help the next priest appointed here as much as you helped me. Us."

"Oh, Father, that's really nice of you to say, but I'm leaving as well."

" _ What _ ?"

She nods. "To be honest with you, if I stayed this long, it was for you, Father. For Father Crowley as well, but Mr. Shadwell has proposed, and we're thinking about moving somewhere else."

Apparently it's never too late to start anew. 

"Well done, Shadwell," Crowley whistles at his side, making Tracy smile. 

"I'm happy for you, dear," Aziraphale says, earnest to his last word, "and thank you, for everything… for everything."

She clucks her tongue and waves goodbye, leaving in a swirl of color, as has always been her style. 

They step into the vicarage when the sun is at his peak, a soft glow in the autumn cold, and the door closes behind them with a soft thud. 

* * *

The water is running in the small shower. Aziraphale can tell himself many things, but he's still fretting, disrobing with a stiffness not present five minutes ago. Behind him, Crowley's doing the same, shucking off his trousers and the torn clerical shirt. Aziraphale knows it's ridiculous, after what they just did, but the fact they're about to bare themselves in front of each other still manages to ramp up his heartbeat, makes restlessness settle heavily like a treacly layer of oil beneath his skin. 

He's never done this before and, despite himself, the verses jam in his mind. 

_ Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen. _

The claustrophobic walls seem to close in on him, falling in from the sides, and more than anything Aziraphale wishes to be  _ enough  _ for him. 

But then Crowley presses against him, his chest flush against Aziraphale's back. "Sweetheart, are you ready?" he asks, lacing long arms around the naked warmth of his midriff, brushing the arch of his ear with his nose. 

Aziraphale breaths again. 

It's just them, he thinks, the same disparate halves from before, at the church, when they were just one. There's no shame, no original sin to be dealt with. 

Aziraphale turns, pulse loud in his ears, and takes in Crowley's figure, the beautiful flow of long limbs, the divots of his ribs, the hollow of his stomach, the tight, flat nipples, and every shred of thought is derailed by the sight. It's impossible not to touch him, not to curl his hands around the trim curve of Crowley's waist, not to map the smooth, freckled skin, relishing the way Crowley's body welcomes him. A shiver, a shudder, a startled moan when he drags his palms along Crowley's chest, grazing his nipples with his thumbs.

This isn't the nudity of a long-held fantasy edging into a dream. It's far more than that, and better in its reality.

"I never thought…" Crowley rasps with eyes blown wide. "Angel, you're gorgeous. Never seen anything more beautiful in my life." He's staring intently at Aziraphale as well, searching his gaze,  _ his heart _ , running his hands along the curve of Aziraphale's sides, gently pinching the generous slopes of his hips as if he can't believe the sight is real. 

Frankly, Aziraphale can relate. 

"You're the beautiful one, my darling." He presses a kiss to Crowley's neck, feels him tremble in his arms, his long fingers clenching around the rounded flesh of Aziraphale's buttocks. "And all mine, all mine at last."

It can't be greed. It can't be that thing that takes and takes and tastes foul, because Aziraphale has never been more satisfied with being torn apart at the seams so thoroughly, to be spent.

_ Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give _ .

And he knows he wants to give Crowley  _ everything _ .

Crowley makes a breathy sort of sound and kisses him, and it's headier, heavier, his tongue insistant and wet in Aziraphale's mouth. It makes a flare of red-hot want thrum deep in his flesh, curling low and dark in his gut, a need never truly abated. 

"Come," Crowley says, and drags Aziraphale finally into the shower. 

The steaming spray is soothing against Aziraphale's skin, digging deep into his tired muscles, a warm whisper that quiets his breath almost to stillness.

Crowley cards Aziraphale's hair with his fingers and pulls him closer under the stream, letting the water run freely over his face and down. Away. 

A baptism, almost, the welcoming redemption of a new faith that lives and pulses in each kiss given, in every word spoken. Aziraphale knows now he never had to choose, not really. One can't cleave one’s own soul in two.

Crowley surges with a kiss ready in his red-bitten lips, throwing his arms around Aziraphale's neck, and Aziraphale opens easily to him, pressing the small of his back with aching hunger, his handspan the perfect measure for Crowley's waist. They fit together perfectly, as if the spaces around each one’s body were made for the promise of the other's lines, pressed hard and demanding. Who says God didn't plan this, after all?

The water slides along their bodies, along where Crowley is skidding fingers over Aziraphale's worn skin, almost reverently. Along where Aziraphale is touching him, grasping the angles of Crowley's hips, mouthing at Crowley's throat, feeling Crowley's jutting erection drag wetly along his thighs. 

Aziraphale's breath is heavy, hot-stained, and his cock is already hard again.

"Would you let me wash you?," Aziraphale asks, hopeful, pushing a hand through the thick silk-soft red hair, now sopping and falling over Crowley's eyes. Wash,  _ not cleanse, _ because there's nothing they've done that requires that. 

Crowley's cheeks flush a ravishing pink. "You want to?"

"More than anything," Aziraphale whispers, kissing him softly below his jaw. 

Crowley only nods sharply. 

"Turn around, please." Aziraphale finds the beautiful curve of Crowley's waist, helping him to do as he asked. 

Crowley's breath stutters out of him, almost lost to the gushing water falling over them. He presses his hands flat against the tiles, and Aziraphale has to admit the view before him is a glorious tableau. 

He has to remember how to breathe, how to keep drawing air, as he watches the glistening gleam of that soft, smooth body beneath his fingertips, unconcerned and utterly his, and it's affecting.  _ Terribly _ so. He dips his thumbs into the dimples of Crowley's back, seeing his spine arch when Aziraphale touches the skin between his shoulder blades with a hot gust of air. 

"You must tell me what you want," Aziraphale breathes into Crowley's ear, his heavy, aching cock nestled between Crowley's buttocks. "There's nothing I'd deny you."

"This," Crowley says, rough-edged, head thrown back. "Just touch me. If you only knew how long I've wanted you to do this."

Aziraphale is heartened, his insides turning liquid. He brushes his lips behind Crowley's ear, slides his palms across Crowley's soaked skin. "You say that as if it's not what I want as well, what I've been longing to do since I met you."

It isn't the raging storm it was before. The sharp-cutting desperation has fled from Aziraphale's bones, and he takes his time, pushing fingers deep into Crowley's flesh, down his thighs, coasting over the planes of his chest, basking in the warmth of water and pressed skin. There's no need to flee just yet, no need to rush. 

He takes the soap absentmindedly and prostrates at Crowley's feet. Here in this place that has been his home, where he prayed and kissed his rosary at night, cradling his Bible in tired hands. It seems so fitting that he’s been given a new altar to adore, here, to worship and start anew. So easy, as well, to trace the skin he hasn’t known until now, but that somehow he knows better than his own. 

It's so simple to love him. Aziraphale feels it galloping in his blood, and knows he won't ever give away the taste of Crowley's mouth, now that he knows it.

"Angel, is everything alright?" Crowley cranes his neck to look behind him, at the floor where Aziraphale must look like a penitent. 

Aziraphale brushes his lips behind Crowley's knee, feels him quiver. "Perfectly, dearest."

He has to command his heart to slow down as he glides his hands up Crowley's calves, hearing the thready exhale coming from Crowley's mouth. Aziraphale lathers the soap, starts low, grazing over the wiry angles of Crowley's feet, swirling around his ankles, washing away the draffs of pain of the last two weeks, the miles walked in shadows. Knows it's his turn to bow his head. 

_ I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. _

And he owes Crowley so much. 

He washes his feet and trails kisses against skin as he moves up, his hands working on Crowley's thighs, his hips, the firm swell of his arse, his own cock throbbing, leaking and red between his legs. 

Crowley whines, pushing hard against the pressure of Aziraphale's mouth, currently biting an arsecheek. " _ Nghh _ , Jesus fuck, Angel, we aren't leaving this shower any time soon, are we?" He moans, tight, high in his throat, when Aziraphale stands and kisses his shoulder, his other hand teasing his nipples. "A-absolutely unfair is what this is."

"Shh," Aziraphale coos. "Let me take care of you, my love, at least today. We have a lifetime to do as we please."

A quiet noise of want pours from Crowley's mouth. "We do, don't we?"

Aziraphale hums agreement, and dips a finger in the crease of Crowley's arse, finding the whorled ring of muscle, still hot and slippery with his come, traces of semen now running down to Crowley's taint. The haze in his head grows almost unbearable, and his cock twitches as it's trapped between their bodies, but Crowley hisses when Aziraphale washes the tucked away parts of him. 

"You can, if you want," Crowley says, but it's a strained, shivery thing. 

Aziraphale blinks, still massaging him clean. "Pardon?"

"Fuck me. You can fuck me again, if you want."

"Oh darling," Aziraphale circles his waist tightly, ignoring the jerk of his cock at Crowley's words. "Much as I'd like to, you must still be sore, and I don't want to cause you any harm."

And it's true. As much as he'd like to split Crowley open with his fingers, watch him bounce on his cock, he can hear him hissing and this is something he won't do. 

" _ Angel… _ " A moan slides out Crowley's mouth, high and airy.

"All the time in the world, my darling. Life doesn't end today."

Crowley gives a plaintive little whine. "Fuck my thighs then. Give me something, 'cause I'm losing my goddamn mind."

"Your–"

"C'mere," Crowley moans, a lilting sound, and in the very same fashion as at the church, he reaches behind him and curls his hand around Aziraphale's cock, placing it in the warmth between his thighs. " _ Christ _ , can't believe I had you inside me. You're  _ big _ ."

Aziraphale's bones, his joints, grate to a stop, frozen at the sudden swell of sensation, and he groans, clasping Crowley's hips. He feels his cockhead nudging Crowley's bollocks, his own sack tight, heavy, and come-filled. 

" _ Crowley _ ."

He sees Crowley closing a hand around his own cock, an airy grunt breaking in half while he shifts and steadies himself against the tiles. "You don't like it? Cause we could change, we could–"

"No," Aziraphale says, barely louder than a whisper. "No."

Words have fled, his mouth dropping open at the tight clasp around his cock, and he wonders if he will be able to last more than mere minutes, afraid he won't be able to return Crowley the pleasure he's receiving.

Crowley spills a vulnerable, surprised moan, his words cut short when Aziraphale eases back. His fattened erection slips between Crowley's soap-slicked legs and it's almost instinctive, the way Aziraphale rolls his hips and starts building a rhythm, thrusting in earnest almost instantly. 

"Yeah, just like that," Crowley grunts, deep in his chest, the movement of his arm frantic, as he works himself harder, faster. He releases more of those wonderful, thready little exhales when Aziraphale brushes heavily against his taint, pressing against the line of his bollocks every time he buries himself hard. 

Crowley draws his legs closer, tighter, and Aziraphale almost fails to find purchase on the glistening, wet surface of his skin. They're soaked, water dripping from their faces, from their hair, falling between them every time Aziraphale eases outwards and sees himself disappear into Crowley's pliant body.

All his struggles, his building resolve, cement with every exquisite flex and move of Crowley's hips, at the arresting sight he makes curling his spine and moaning Aziraphale's name into the air. 

And Aziraphale knows he's no longer lost, no longer terrified of what comes next, because Crowley will be forever at his side. And the realization is almost like a vision, searing and scorching him from inside.

_ The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. _

" _ Fuck _ , I'm close."

Crowley is panting now, and Aziraphale enjoys the view of his sharp profile, now soft in the throes of his pleasure, all dark-flushed cheeks and pouting lips. The need to lick every last inch of damp skin, to taste Crowley thoroughly, weighs heavily in his stomach, unsated, and he drags his lips, his tongue, over the warm, beautiful curves of his shoulders, his back. 

And he can't help it, not really, the way he shoves his hips harder, faster, unrelenting. The way his whole body seems to shiver and jump to the last nerve, muscle and sinew, thinking about the tight clench of Crowley's thighs, feeling his shudders and moans pressed against his skin as if they were his own. 

All his senses are lost to the lewd sounds echoing in the room, to the movement of his desperate hands that grasp and squeeze between Crowley's legs, then up to grab a fistful of hair while his thrusts become stuttered and artless, his pelvis smacking hard against Crowley's arse. And it's impossibly sweet, the way Crowley hums his encouragement until Aziraphale finally claims him, digging his nails into Crowley's hipbones and coming with with a groan, for seconds that feel eternal, spilling himself in a garish mess at the apex of Crowley's thighs. 

Crowley follows him closely, and Aziraphale holds him safely between his arms, feeling Crowley's heartbeat over the roar of his own blood in his ears. 

They remain together as the water washes away their shared need, and Crowley spins on his heels to kiss the tendrils of Aziraphale's breath with swollen lips. Down his jaw, and up to his brow. Slow and lazy.

"Hey," Crowley says finally, with a bright smile. His eyes – gold and threaded with love and mirth and  _ trust _ – focus on him with an intensity that makes Aziraphale's knees shake. "Good number you pulled on me today."

"Number?"

"I never thought you could be so positively hedonistic, Angel.

Aziraphale smiles, and he doesn't care that he has been spotted and seen so clearly, because there's not an ounce of judgement in Crowley's voice. 

"And I never thought you could be so terribly demanding, my love."

"Guess we both end up with more than we bargained for."

Crowley's laugh, his touch, have been the only comforts in Aziraphale's lackluster life, and he breathes deeper, better, knowing he won't have to renounce them. And he loves him like this, open and joyful and giving. 

His. His, his,  _ his _ . 

"Are you ready now?" Crowley asks. 

And he is. He has never felt more prepared for anything in his life. 

"I am."

"C'mon, then, let's get ready."

Crowley closes the taps and pulls Aziraphale out of the shower, wrapping him in the closest towel he finds, a threadbare number that has frankly seen better days. He cinches another one around his own waist, which is an offense all on its own. 

"Pack everything you'll need, we won't be back," he says. "And perhaps we can stay at a hotel for tonight, who knows. We'll figure something out."

Aziraphale nods, searching, looking around, and feels Crowley seek his lips once again, kiss him with infinite gentleness, tipping his head up. 

"Thank you."

Aziraphale blinks. "What for?"

"For this, for everything. For coming to me, I don't know. For… for loving me, I guess."

Laughter, clear and loud as a bell, escapes Aziraphale's lips. 

"Don't be absurd," he says. "You can't thank me for loving you when it's the only thing I've ever done right and selfishly in my life. I'll love you as long as God allows us to be together, and even then I shall keep loving you. I'll love you as long as you’ll have me."

Crowley's throat jerks wildly around a swallow. His eyes, lit golden and tracery-adorned by sunlight, twinkle. "Gonna be stuck with me forever, then."

"My dear, I can think of nothing I want more."

* * *

The roads are clear, winding between slopes of soft hills. The Bentley hums soothingly, and Aziraphale has been drifting in and out of sleep for at least an hour now. They're about to arrive, and it's already closer to  _ vespers _ than  _ none _ . 

They'd dressed in black trousers and the same clerical shirts they'd used until now, leaving the collars off. It's practical – one thing less to worry about. 

Under the stripping, rusty-haze light of the dying sun, the landscape seems to burn crimson, like blood spilled on the earth. 

It feels dream-like almost, driving in comfortable silence next to Crowley with the strobing sparks of new-found joy lighting him up inside, the prospect of their future haphazardly thrown into the two insufficient duffel bags in the back seat. And with every mile and every second, the long years of baggage fall off onto the road, making him feel lighter.

He moves his hand to his naked throat more than once, tracing the bare skin and falling, eventually, to the crucifix. 

Aziraphale rummages through the layers inside him and finds he doesn't feel alone, distant, and unworthy any more. At some moment between morning and now, he died and arose again. Resurrection indeed, from a place that had always felt like a grave. 

He spots the craggy lines of Bishopthorpe Palace in the distance, and his heart hammers hard in his chest. 

Up there in the sky, the indigo wash slowly eats away the remaining shards of daylight, the minutes they have until the end. There's no artful mastery for closings, one only need hope for the best.

Aziraphale takes a deep, fortifying breath when the Bentley draws to a halt.

Crowley moves his hand to Aziraphale's knee and squeezes it. 

"We're here," he says, a bit stilted, a bit unsure. 

Aziraphale has lived in fear almost his whole life and perhaps, perhaps at another time, he would have collapsed in a moment like this. Brittle, tired, old. 

Not today, though. Absolutely not. 

He clasps Crowley's hand in his and smiles. 

"Let's go."

* * *

Demanding an appointment with Gabriel isn't difficult, much to Aziraphale's surprise. Like on the phone, once Aziraphale states who he is and lets that recently-found steel ring in his voice, the secretary is  _ happy _ to help. 

_ The Archbishop is available, and will be with you shortly _ .

He's tempted to take Crowley's hand in his. After the short time they've spent together, the lack of closeness feels like a sin already. But he won't push it, not here. He won't risk making Crowley face gaping shock, or amusement. 

When they're finally called to follow the secretary through the door at the end of the hall, Aziraphale's heart is bursting, beating in his throat. He can see Crowley's hands, restless, unsure where to settle, clasped in front, at his back, a maelstrom of disjointed movements, until he decides to cross his arms over his chest. 

The door closes behind them, and suddenly he's faced with Gabriel, sitting in his elegant chair. Unimpressed, slightly bored. Aloof on his throne of power, as it has been for the last fifteen years. 

Gabriel quirks a brow. "What are you both doing here?"

No welcome, not a spare word of gentleness.

Aziraphale can certainly return the favor. 

"We need to talk."

At his side, Crowley lets out a deep sigh. Gabriel's gaze flickers between them, as if trying to parse the answer to his question without them talking. His eyes open wide. 

"What happened to your collars?" he frowns. "Aziraphale, what's going on? Wasn't he," and nods dismissively at Crowley, "supposed to be at another parish tomorrow?"

Aziraphale can feel his anger rising steadily in his chest, flooding every limb and nerve. But that won't help them. The truth can be –  _ will be _ – harsher than irate words. 

"Like I said, we need to talk,” Aziraphale presses. “So, we can do this here, standing where we are, or you can offer us a seat."

Gabriel seems to ponder his words for a second before waving his hand in the direction of the two chairs in front of him. Every step taken tastes a bit like freedom, and feels foreign, as if another body at another time were taking them. 

"Well?" Gabriel asks, once they're sitting. 

This is where the chapter ends, in this muffled, cluttered  _ nowhere,  _ with the air weighed down with embittered truths _.  _ Here, where the sofas and small tables seem to smother him in accusing lavishness. 

Aziraphale sets his jaw. 

"We've come here to request laicisation," he says, perhaps a bit louder than he intended. "We'd like to part ways with the church."

Gabriel blinks, the contemptuous pinch of his face giving way to what seems disbelief. 

"Have you lost your mind?" he scoffs. "Give me a break, Aziraphale, and start making some sense, because I won't stand for your absurd behaviour."

Aziraphale sees, almost  _ feels _ the line of Crowley's body tensing, his hands clasping the black cloth of his trousers hard around his bony knees. 

"I think I've been perfectly clear, Gabriel."

"Your Grace," Gabriel points, snidely.

"If you want," Aziraphale says. There's a strange sort of calm inside him, right where up, until this morning, a storm had threatened to swallow him whole. His heart beats faster, thunders, trying to catch up maddenly with the years unlived. "I came here to talk to my brother. To explain. But I'd forgotten that the brother I had is almost never available. Unlike you. Your Grace."

"Aziraphale," Gabriel warns, but there's a hairline fracture in the steady lilt of his voice. Just the seep of a doubt. 

"Then let me tell you, Your Grace," Aziraphale pushes through, with the fire of long-sought relief. "I'm renouncing the church as of today. To my station and my parish. I can no longer pretend my heart is here. That lie would be a bigger sin."

Gabriel leans over his desk, cold fury etched in the lines of his face. "And this isn't?"

"At least I'm being honest."

"Honest," Gabriel deadpans. "You haven't said why. I demand an answer."

Aziraphale tramples his first instinct, that is to storm off through the doors holding Crowley’s hand and never look back. But it quickly develops into something heavier, the need to  _ be _ truthful, pulling shrouds and mantles away. Let Gabriel look into the Ark of the Covenant, sow its retribution, and see if he doesn’t burn. Aziraphale squares his shoulders, sits a little taller, relishing the way his heart sways towards Crowley like a lost boat towards a lighthouse. 

"Because I'm gay, and you knew it,” he says steadily, feeling how the long-barred words roll and spill free. Frame by frame, he cards through the roll of his life to the last detail. So finally this truth, this bright thing he's living, gets to smother every sour memory, every moment of ache nestled in the dark spaces of him. It isn't easy to think about the time wasted, the bravery he lacked twenty years ago, but as he turns and gazes at Crowley, at the gold catching in his hair when the light strikes just so, Aziraphale believes this was the right path all along. “I’m gay, Gabriel, and I refuse to keep hiding myself, or the fact that I love this man sitting right here." His hand finds Crowley's easily, and he grasps it as if it is a lifeline. Gabriel's jaw falls slack, his face tinged with anger, with contempt. He doesn’t speak, which spurs Aziraphale on, "I've never prayed for God to change me, I've prayed that no one would find out. For you. For the veneer of twisted respectability I was expected to enforce. But this isn't something I should hide. Not anymore. Not when I've already squandered my life and God is offering me one last chance."

Gabriel’s nostrils flare. “You did this,” he spits at Crowley. With venom. Acidic. “You dragged my brother into this shameful sin, you Serpent. I should’ve–”

“Do not talk to him like that! I was the one who sought him out!” Aziraphale almost leaps out of his chair, planting his palms flat on the desk before Crowley can manage to say anything. All the years of listless acceptance, of idle stoicism bled out of him, because he could give in and offer the other cheek. But never Crowley’s. “This isn’t shame, not mine at least. It is yours. Because you didn’t just force me into a closet. You put me in a cage!”

Gabriel splutters as he fails to find the words he needs, and in another time it would’ve been satisfying to see him floundering, to see him human. “You’ve lost your mind, brother,” he finally says. “This isn’t love.”

“And what do you know about love?” Aziraphale asks, ruefully. There’s an image in his mind of days past, of a gentle little boy with dark hair who used to keep his little brother up all night with stories, and gave him his favourite toy to keep him from crying. But the pictures have turned sepia, discolored and old, brittle at the sides, and the memories are only wisps of a long-lost life. Aziraphale swallows around the lump in his throat. “You sit here, separated from everyone. Do you listen to them, do you even  _ care _ ?”

“I’m trying to do my job!”

“I thought it was your Calling.”

Gabriel flinches, recoils before continuing. “If you follow this path, everyone will turn their back on you. Our family–”

“We haven’t been a family since our parents died, perhaps even longer,” and his words come out tired, slanted by the weight of their truth. “You know that. You think I am afraid to disappoint you? Sandalphon? That I’m afraid of being cast out? What would that even change? We haven’t really spoken in years.”

Silence. Silence, yet again. As it always has been at the crossroads of his life. And if Aziraphale didn’t know better, he might have thought Gabriel was praying, closing his eyes as he is. But it’s twenty years into the future, and he knows his mind is circling around how the scale will tilt once this comes out. How it will affect  _ him _ . He lost his brother long ago, and the idea sinks and shifts, and in a way it feels refreshing, because he doesn’t feel guilty for the selfish delight that sings in him at Gabriel’s face wracked with anger.

“You’ve sinned, Aziraphale. You’ve broken the vows you made, broken the trust–”

“Love can never be a sin, and if you don’t understand that, I pity you.” It’s as if his words set down heavily on Gabriel’s shoulders. For the first time, and perhaps the last, he is heard. Gabriel is hearing him, _ listening, _ out of shock, fear, or fury. It doesn’t matter which. “There’s no one I’m afraid to let down anymore. No one but Crowley,” Aziraphale adds, offering his hand to Crowley, who takes it and stands next to him. “And if there’s one thing I thank you for, it is that, by your hand, I was able to meet him. If only for that, I’ll be forever grateful to you.” 

And Aziraphale’s heart races, wildly, and he’s breathing hard through barely parted lips. Here he is, feeling like David facing Goliath, able to trample down armies beneath his feet. 

"You'll regret this. Sooner or later you will," Gabriel spits. "You'll be excommunicated, both of you."

It's a paltry, petty argument, and Aziraphale knows it. 

"Threaten me if you must, but I don't care, because the God who made the world and everything in it does not live in temples made by man." He smiles. "We'll be fine. Goodbye, brother."

He pulls a stunned Crowley out through the doors, vaguely registering the muffled gasps of surprise, the hushed words at their back. He must have been louder than he thought. They dash through the hallway that seems endless in its whiteness, the soles of their shoes nearly soundless against the carpet, until they stumble outside. 

And they're laughing, as ludicrous as it is, and Crowley's pulling Aziraphale close, closer, and into him, stitching with his kisses any place the last half hour might have left torn. 

"Can't believe you just did that," Crowley breathes on his lips. "You just said ‘fuck it’ to the Archbishop of fucking York. Christ. You, Angel of the Lord."

Aziraphale bursts his joy into Crowley's mouth. "I did, didn't I? I think it went rather well, if you don't mind me saying."

He's still trying to blink against the swirl of dizziness, to ground himself on the earth under his feet, on Crowley's touch on his skin. Unfettered for the first time, all of him an untrammeled will that sets and rises with the man in his arms.

"Thank you," Aziraphale says. "For staying. For giving me another chance even though I know I didn't deserve it."

"Hey. Hey." Crowley places his palms at the sides of his face, scraping his cheeks with rough thumbs. "You were the one who gave me the gift. You deserve everything. Anything. And I'll fucking live my life to prove it to you."

"Will you?" and Aziraphale tries to control his barreling tongue, resist the need to say and do more. 

Crowley gives a startled laugh, "I will." A kiss on Aziraphale's nose. "Like you said, we have a lifetime ahead of us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogues from the confrontation between Gabriel and Aziraphale have been made taking as reference testimonies from gay catholic priests who were brave enough to share their sentiments in different media. I felt I needed them because it's such a big, monumental step that can't be faked if you don't know what you're talking about. 
> 
> 💜❤️
> 
> Hmu on [Tumblr](https://naromoreau.tumblr.com/) <3  
> Or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xenoscientist/)


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone! It's been a very fun and cathartic ride and I'm over the moon happy with all the love you've given this fic. Catch me crying in the club. 
> 
> As always, my love to HatKnitter, as my beta, to hanap, jenanigans1207 and caedmon for the last push in the epilogue. All the love in my heart for you!!!
> 
> There's art for this chapter by the always amazingly talented Lei Sam who is an absolute blessing of a person. ❤️
> 
> And last but not least, I've been waiting to finish it, so it isn't as daunting but this fic is a gift for three people: hanap, quiltedspacemittens and saretton. You guys. Our lil sunday school has been a blessing to me, and you all have been not only amazing friends but also incredibly supportive with this. I know we share much of the things I touched here and I just want to say. I hear you all, I see you all.
> 
> I love you. 
> 
> And here we are.

_**One year later.** _

“Angel, it’s here, come down! What’s taking you so long?”

Aziraphale shuffles closer to the door of their room. “I’m coming, I’m coming, there’s no need to yell.”

He can hear Crowley sputtering gibberish somewhere around the living room. They’ve been waiting for the newspaper, almost counting the minutes. Crowley’s 100th column in The Guardian had been printed the day before. 

Outside, spring edges already into summer, the glow of the sun seeping through the bay windows. 

A scarce week after the affair was made public, announcing the Archbishop’s brother had declared himself gay and in a relationship with another priest, Crowley had gotten a call from Eric, a reporter from the Tadfield Advertiser. In clear terms, the young man had explained that he had been thoroughly impressed by Crowley’s performance at the Dowlings’ party, stating that whoever could face someone as powerful as Gabriel in public, with arguments as solid and level-headed as the ones he had exerted, deserved a voice in a public platform. Winds of change and all that. 

He’d offered Crowley the phone number of a friend who was eager to have him as a collaborator after Eric had disclosed the story and filled in the blank spaces about their situation. The newspaper was _The Guardian_. The collaboration had been quickly accepted by both. The editor had given Crowley carte blanche on the topics he could write about which, of course, had leaned towards beliefs, modern times, and lgbtq+a issues.

The readers had been delighted. 

Aziraphale can hardly believe a year has passed so swiftly, brushing them both with memories that promptly left behind every single sour moment, every doubt and bleak hope. They’d sunk their roots deeply into this part of the South Downs, cradled sweetly by their newfound stability. 

The money Aziraphale’s parents had left him, a heftier sum than Aziraphale had been expecting, had been more than enough to secure housing. He’d never bothered to check, and, in a way, it had been a very pleasant surprise. It had given them the opportunity to chase their dreams, and Crowley had opened a nursery to complement his work as a writer, while Aziraphale had settled for trying his hand at modest investments that had worked out really well. He'd also dedicated time to help and guide groups of young people that had contacted him after learning what he'd done. What he'd faced. And something had lodged in his throat, listening to voices as lost as he once was, who sought to learn whether their beliefs could still sustain them, despite whom they chose to love. 

Day by day, Aziraphale sees less of the lingering stain of his long-held guilt. It fizzles farther out with every kiss, every night with both of them tangled under the quilt. With every curse from Crowley, voice echoing loudly when he yells at his newly-acquired iPhone over some game that apparently requires him to crush candies or something. Aziraphale doesn’t understand at all. 

They had missed so much during their lives in the Church. The world had almost left them behind. And it’s difficult, in a way, to arrange themselves, their tired old limbs gliding over novelties that range from movies to a particular taste of freedom. To enjoy without guilt. To take the bite Crowley offers him with a ravishing smile. To appreciate the sweet scent of buttery crepes, unstained by the odor of righteousness hanging heavily in oils and incenses. Life is a tapestry made of greens and blues and reds, not a plain black cloth in which blemishes go unseen. They've been finding new threads that they're slowly weaving together, with every shortcoming, every stab of pain, every tear, kiss and heartfelt laugh.

And Aziraphale is getting there, slowly. He is. Learning to savour new experiences, to accept impulse and to dare, each day a bit more. After all, they have each other, and it’s becoming less terrifying when Aziraphale wakes up at night and feels the ground pulling away from under his feet. When he wakes up before the sunrise feeling a body pressed beautifully against him, an arm around his waist, warmth all around, and frets over the dream that seems to be slipping between his fingers. 

When he wakes up, and his thighs aren't pressed against a thin, hard mattress in a cold room, but enveloped in the lavish plushness of the irreverently large one Crowley had chosen.

No one bats an eye when they hold hands at the market. There’s perhaps a soft smile, and once or twice a pat on the shoulder, and a _thank you_ from young people with rainbow shirts and sometimes plain, regular clothes. Aziraphale _does_ understand that. It makes their excommunication letter sting less. They’re cast out of the church, but the world has welcomed them. 

It’s a fair trade. 

_He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away._

He smiles at the mirror, adjusting his cufflinks, rolling his wedding band tighter in his finger and closes his eyes. It had been perfectly natural to take the next step – no hesitation, not a sliver of second-guessing – and ask Crowley to marry him, whisking him away to Cornwall for a weekend. It's been six months, and yet he can still hear the roll of the combers lapping lazily over the sand, can still see the sun bouncing off the crests of the waves, gulls winnowing the sky with hurried wings. 

His husband standing at the edge of a cliff, stunningly handsome in his dark grey suit. 

After all the time hiding in black, Aziraphale's discovered it’s soothing to wear cream hues. In a way, it’s a statement; _look at this, my soul is pure_. And it’s the strong statement of his new beliefs, etched into his clothes, in the stitching of the trousers and the softness of the velveteen waistcoat. They’re his new vestments, self-chosen symbols of the new calling he has in Crowley’s love, a found ministry that’s sincere, selfless, and makes his soul soar. His fingers tie the loop of his bowtie with practice and ease, and he would be hard-pressed not to admit he thinks of it as a new collar – a better, more stylish one, perhaps. After all, it’s tartan. 

“Angel!” comes Crowley’s yelp. “I’m not waiting any longer!”

Aziraphale hurries out of their bedroom and down the stairs. “Such little patience, my love. What am I to do with you?”

Crowley tsks, but his face splits in a wide grin. “Do you want to do the honors?” He extends the newspaper in Aziraphale’s direction, along with a pair of scissors. 

“I’d be delighted.”

Carefully, Aziraphale takes a seat at their table and starts cutting the newspaper until he has Crowley’s column in a neat and perfect rectangle. He grabs a nearby binder that stores every single one of Crowley’s stories, and places the piece of paper on the last page. 

“There,” Aziraphale says. “And now to start a new count.”

Crowley pulls him up and into a kiss, imprinting his touch on Aziraphale, a firebrand that tastes holy. Aziraphale had never thought the glaze of novelty would linger, but every time he sinks into Crowley’s arms it feels like that one time at the vicarage’s kitchen, when he had embraced him for the first time. And it’s Crowley, stubborn and challenging and sweet and incredibly beautiful. And he’s Aziraphale’s husband. 

Later, he finds himself pulled to their sofa, and Crowley quickly arranges himself in his favourite position, with his head resting on Aziraphale’s thighs. 

“You wanna watch something?” Crowley asks. 

“As long as it isn’t one of your dreadful shows.”

“C’mon, James Bond isn’t dreadful. It’s classic! You have no taste whatsoever.”

Aziraphale cards his fingers through the skein of long red hair splayed across his khakis. It was one of the first things Crowley had decided. He has stopped cutting his hair short, maintaining it now at shoulder length, and Aziraphale has quickly warmed to the new image.

It’s been quite easy, in all honesty. After all, his husband is beautiful no matter what he wears. 

“Mmm,” Aziraphale hums. “I must have _some_ taste. After all, I married you.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Angel.”

He picks up the remote and starts some movie he won’t end up watching, because he’ll fall asleep in the middle with Aziraphale caressing his scalp. 

The summer is really showing, the heat simmering and digging his fingers into their cottage. Aziraphale rolls up his sleeves while Crowley tries to explain some ridiculous fact for the eleventh time, before giving up. Eventually, Aziraphale unties his bow tie to leave it hanging freely at the sides of his neck. 

Far away, the church bells toll. It's Sunday, after all. 

He tries to ignore that stabbing ache, the one that blooms when he thinks about the masses he won't be celebrating, the communion he isn't receiving. Their journey of one year is only the beginning of the road they must travel, the path that now passes under their feet, swiftly while they ride in the Bentley.

But while he watches his husband sleep, the firelight of his hair flowing freely, the pulsing hum of the fridge carrying that soothing sense of home towards the living room, Aziraphale understands St. Francis' views. Because God is in the amber shine on their windowsills, in the cracking ice rime of the winter they saw pass, in the red fever of dusk smeared on their windows. And God is there every time he presses Crowley's sweat-dewed skin against the sheets, every single time he tongues and leaves wet strips along his chest and moves languorously inside him. 

The Lord is dwelling in here, in their bed, in their home, because _where ever two are gathered in my name, there I am_. 

Aziraphale smiles. 

They have God on their side. 

They need nothing else. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading me, and if you want you can meet me in my next story, a mystery with Monk! Aziraphale and Demon! Crowley that I'm currently writing for an event. ✨💕
> 
> [Enraptured](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28260351/chapters/69252963)

**Author's Note:**

> Hmu on [Tumblr](https://naromoreau.tumblr.com/) <3  
> Or if you want, come and let's yell into the void on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xenoscientist/) 💜


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